Matthew Rice in conversation

Blackwell’s Manchester hosts an evening exploring labour, class and Irish history through poetry, welcoming Matthew Rice in conversation with poet Andrew McMillan MBE.

The event centres on Plastic, Rice’s book-length poem published by Fitzcarraldo, which transforms lived experience of industrial work into a formally ambitious and politically resonant work.

Set over the course of a single night shift in a factory, Plastic draws on Rice’s decade working in plastic moulding, blending memoir, satire and cultural reference. Time-stamped and claustrophobic, the poem captures the rhythms of repetitive labour while reflecting on creativity, aspiration and the contradictions of post-industrial life in contemporary Ireland.

Moving between factory floors and literary, artistic and cinematic echoes, the work examines what it means to feel a vocation for art while immersed in menial labour. With clarity and lyric force, Plastic gives voice to working-class realities, tracing moments of endurance, frustration and imaginative possibility.

In conversation with McMillan, Rice discusses the making of the poem, the politics of work and class, and the possibilities of poetry as a form for sustained narrative and social inquiry.