Inaugural Lecture: Alan Gillis

This free public lecture and reading celebrates the appointment of Alan Gillis as Professor of Modern Poetry at the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh.

For this Inaugural Lecture, Alan will read poems from throughout his career, focusing on new work and reflecting here and there on his aims and experience in writing them.

Alan Gillis completed his undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin, followed by an MA and PhD at Queens University Belfast. He was Research Fellow at The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at QUB, then Lecturer in Modern Irish Literature at The University of Ulster, before joining the department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh in 2006.

Alan’s fifth poetry collection The Readiness was published by Picador in 2020. He has previously been nominated for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and named a ‘Next Generation Poet’. As critic he is author of Irish Poetry of the 1930s (OUP, 2005), and many essays on modern and contemporary Irish and Scottish poets. He was previously editor of Edinburgh Review, and The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry (2011).

Browse Professor Gillis's staff profile on the University of Edinburgh's website

Inaugural Lectures are public talks by newly-appointed Professors and Chairs at the University of Edinburgh. The lectures are free and open to all.

Browse more Inaugural Lectures on the University of Edinburgh website

Please note that this lecture is a free, in-person event held on the University of Edinburgh campus. It will not be live streamed - tickets are for access to the venue. However, the lecture may be photographed and/or recorded and added to the University website afterwards. If you would prefer not to appear in any recordings, please contact us in advance or speak to us on the day. It's not a problem.

Host or Publisher School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures