Canadian poet George Elliott Clarke, whose work features on U2’s current Joshua Tree anniversary tour, will visit Seamus Heaney HomePlace on Wednesday 23 August as part of ‘The Shaken and the Stirred: A Celebration of Canadian Poetry’. 

Two poems by Clarke, who is Canada’s Parliamentary Poet and Poet Laureate, appear as projections before every show on U2’s current North American and European tour.  ‘Kaddish for Leonard Cohen’ was written as a tribute to the late Montreal songwriter, while ‘Ain’t You Scared of the Sacred’ addresses the Quebec City mosque shooting in January that left six people dead.

Clarke forms part of ‘The Shaken and the Stirred’, a collective of five renowned Canadian poets and novelists will present their work in public readings throughout the UK and Northern Ireland to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of Canada.

The poetry collective of individual writers is selected each year by a panel, representing the Canadian Centre for Creative Learning. This year the collective also includes prize-winning authors Jeanette Lynes, Ian Burgham, Catherine Graham and Giovanna Riccio reading from their recently released and upcoming collections.

These writers, all of whom have been published and recognised internationally, not only represent some of the strongest voices and best contemporary work being produced in Canada, but demonstrate a wide range of kinds of poetry and themes that currently can be found in the Canadian literary landscape and have produced over thirty collections of poetry.

Tickets for ‘The Shaken and the Stirred: A Celebration of Canadian Poetry’ on Wednesday 23 August at 7.30pm at Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy, are £5 and are available now from www.seamusheaneyhome.com