more about adrian rice

In 1999, as recipient of the U.S./Ireland Residency Exchange Bursary, Adrian Rice was Poet-in Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne College. With his charming Irish brogue, Rice explained that he thought he was coming to Harvard or Princeton. “I got word that I was going to Hickory,” he said. “All my friends slagged me off,” he said. “They asked me where Hickory is and started joking with me about Dolly Parton and cowboy poetry.” Schools, colleges and organizations were encouraged to book Adrian for poetry readings.

At the end of his five-week residency at Lenoir-Rhyne, Rice returned to Belfast, established a home base in Northern Ireland and worked there. Rice also worked throughout the rest of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Russia, Hungary and the United States for the next five years. Rice became a recognized poet in Ireland but returned to the U.S. when Rand Brandes and Lenoir-Rhyne invited him back as the Visiting Writer-in-Residence at LRC for 2005. Rice said he was to return to Belfast after the Visiting Writer stint ended in June 2005. However, Rice and his new American wife, Molly, were encouraged to stay in Hickory to work as artists in the community. Expecting their first child, Molly teaches drama at St. Stephen’s HS, and Rice now teaches English at CVCC.

Biographical Note

Rice is from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He graduated from the University of Ulster with a BA in English and Politics and an MPhil in Anglo-Irish Literature. He is a poet, editor, musician and educator. He has held several university positions, and delivered writing workshops and lectures throughout Ireland and America. His first sequence of poems appeared in Muck Island (Moongate Publications, 1990), a collaboration with Irish artist, Ross Wilson. Copies of this box-set are housed in the collections of The Tate Gallery, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard University. A following chapbook, Impediments (Abbey Press, 1997), also earned widespread critical acclaim. He edited Signals (Abbey Press, 1997), which was a Times Educational Supplement ‘Paperback Choice’. He has also edited five anthologies of children’s poetry, art and drama: Life of the Lough (1999), Sea & Shore (2000), Around the Lough (2001), Lough Views (2003), Exploring the Lough: Creative Activities for the Primary School Classroom (2003), and Shorelines (2004).   

In 1997, Rice received the Sir James Kilfedder Memorial Bursary for Emerging Artists. In autumn 1999, as recipient of the US/Ireland Exchange Bursary, he was Poet-in-Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne College, where he received ‘The Key to the City’. His first full poetry collection – The Mason’s Tongue (Abbey Press, 1999) – was published soon after, and was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Literary Prize, nominated for the Irish Times Prize for Poetry, and translated into Hungarian by Dr. Thomas Kabdebo (A Komuves Nyelve, epl/ediotio plurilingua, 2005).  

In 2002, he co-edited a major Irish anthology entitled, A Conversation Piece: Poetry and Art (The Ulster Museum in association with Abbey Press).  

His latest publications include The Tin God, a history of Cans Metal Box factory, Portadown, which was shortlisted for the ‘Celebrating Our Local History’ Competition by the Northern Ireland Publications Resource; and Insights (as editor), an anthology of poetry from The Dungannon Visually-Impaired Group, which earned the Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough Council’s ‘Achievement Award’.  

Selections of his work have recently appeared in The Ulster Anthology (Ed., Patricia Craig, Blackstaff Press) and Magnetic North: The Emerging Poets (Ed., John Brown, Lagan Press).  A new limited edition book of poems and images, Moongate – also in (trans-Atlantic) collaboration with Irish artist, Ross Wilson – is forthcoming. Hickory Haiku is also in the publishing pipeline.

Recent readings include Swarthmore College, Villanova University, and Lenoir-Rhyne College, to which he returned as Visiting Writer-in-Residence for 2005.  Since then, Rice has happily settled in Hickory, and currently teaches English at Catawba Valley Community College.  Turning poetry into lyrics, he has also teamed up with Hickory-based and fellow Belfast man, musician/songwriter Alyn Mearns, to form ‘The Belfast Boys’, a dynamic Irish Traditional Music band.

Today, he is especially excited about seeking a publisher for his just written sequence of 50 haiku entitled, appropriately, Hickory Haiku. And, go get a sneak preview of Hickory Haiku when Rice shares the stage with Mearns and Ian Thomas at Drips Coffeehouse  Friday, Sept. 25

Visit www.adrianrice.com” www.adrianrice.com, www.abbeypressbooks.com     and www.myspace.com/thebelfastboys

more about Alyn Mearns

Alyn Mearns was born and raised in the troubled streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He began studying the violin at age five but decisively switched to the guitar at 10 after hearing a friend play, “Johnny B. Goode.”

Mearns moved with his family to America at 16 and soon met Dr Douglas James, his first mentor and teacher. Upon the suggestion of James, he competed for ASU’s annual Fletcher Scholarship and won. Upon completion of his degree in music performance, Mearns went on to pursue graduate studies at Austin Peay State University, under the guidance of eminent virtuoso and scholar Dr Stanley Yates, where he actively composed original music and arranged Chopin, Mozart and Bach for guitar. Mearns  won a prize in the Appalachian guitar competition and has had music published by Mel Bay, Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine, and was commissioned to write a tone poem, “The Vastness of the Sea” for The Appalachian Summer Festival.

Mearns currently tours Europe and America with his own brand of sophisticated songwriting (myspace.com/mearnsmusic), which lies somewhere between John Dowland and John Lennon. His latest LP, “Night Horses” will be released by End of the World records later this year.

Mearns also composes and plays traditional Irish music as one half of ‘The Belfast Boys’ with fellow Belfast man and one of Ireland’s most distinguished poets, Adrian Rice.

Mearns  currently resides in Hickory,  with his wife Carrie and his two children; Ravel and Dorian.