A Look Back at the First Annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry

Saturday, September 25, 2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry. Seamus Heaney himself inaugurated the first Tom Quinlan lecture in 2011 at Glucksman Ireland House NYU to endorse the importance of the first published book of poetry in a poet’s literary life. The lecture series, established by the Quinlan family, is named for Tom Quinlan in honor of his nearly 70 years as a poetry teacher and scholar. Quinlan, a member of Glucksman Ireland House since 1997, also read at this event.

Watch an excerpt of this reading from September 25, 2011. As Joe Quinlan remarked to Irish America “We were VERY surprised he wanted to speak – and very happy he did.”