Mairtín Crawford

Who was Mairtín Crawford?

Mairtín Crawford was a poet and journalist who was born and educated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He co-founded and edited the Big Spoon literary arts magazine in the 1990s, was production and arts editor of Fortnight magazine, was a creative writing tutor at the Crescent Arts Centre for eight years, and was appointed Director of Between The Lines arts festival for 2004.

Mairtín brought "Beat" poet Allen Ginsberg to Belfast in 1993 for two public reading events. Among several trips to the USA, in 2001 Mairtín travelled west and met with NASA personnel to research a book of poetry dealing with the concept and implications of space flight. Some of the resulting poems are published in his Selected Poems.