If great art comes from suffering, there were plenty of hard knocks to be had in embattled Belfast, Northern Ireland. That’s where poet Adrian Rice grew up and published collections including Impediments and The Mason’s Tongue. Nobel Prize recipient Seamus Heaney said that Rice “has a nice sense of what he is up to as a poet: I like and admire the way his district and his diction are so artfully tongue-in-cheek and hand-in-glove.” In ’05, Rice came to North Carolina as a visiting writer-in-residence at Lenoir-Rhyne College. He met his wife and settled in Hickory, where he continues to teach, write and perform as part of Irish music duo The Belfast Boys. Rice and fellow Belfast Boys musician Alyn Mearns (of the solo project Yes the Raven) present From Belfast with Love, at White Horse Black Mountain on Saturday, April 12, at 8 p.m. $12 advance/$15 at the door. whitehorseblackmountain.com. Photo by Jon Eckard
Smart Bets: Adrian Rice
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