Contemporary Irish Women Poets
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contemporary irish women poets LIVERPOOL ENGLISH TEXTS AND STUDIES 66 CONTEMPORARY IRISH WOMEN POETS MEMORY AND ESTRANGEMENT LUCY COLLINS LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS CONTEMPORARY IRISH WOMEN POETS First published 2015 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2015 Lucy Collins The right of Lucy Collins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-187-8 cased epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-469-5 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY For Andrew Contents contents Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi Introduction: Memory, Estrangement and the Poetic Text 1 I Concepts Chapter 1 Lost Lands: The Creation of Memory in the Poetry of Eavan Boland 23 Chapter 2 Between Here and There: Migrant Identities and the Contemporary Irish Woman Poet 49 Chapter 3 Private Memory and the Construction of Subjectivity in Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry 78 II Achievements Chapter 4 Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Spaces of Memory 111 Chapter 5 Medbh McGuckian’s Radical Temporalities 139 Chapter 6 Catherine Walsh: A Poetics of Flux 169 Chapter 7 Vona Groarke: Memory and Materiality 195 Conclusion: Memories of the Future 218 Bibliography 225 Index 241 Acknowledgements acknowledgements This book has been the product of a long period of reading and thinking about contemporary women poets and I would like to thank those who have supported this project. I am grateful to the following libraries for access to materials: the British Library, the National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Library and University College Dublin Library. Thanks to my colleagues at University College Dublin for their comradeship and encouragement, especially John Brannigan, Danielle Clarke, Sharae Deckard, Fionnuala Dillane, Anne Fogarty, Jane Grogan, Margaret Kelleher, Gerardine Meaney and Tony Roche. Emilie Pine’s work in the field of Irish Memory Studies has been an inspiration and this book has benefited greatly from her initiatives. To Catriona Clutterbuck I owe a particular debt of gratitude for her interest in all things poetic and for her generosity. Other friends and colleagues both in Ireland and abroad have spurred me on: Rebecca Barr, Matthew Campbell, Patricia Coughlan, Alex Davis, Gerald Dawe, Eric Falci, Borbála Faragó, Luz Mar González-Arias, Neil Hegarty, Peter Kuch, Lucy McDiarmid, Jody Allen Randolph, Hedwig Schwall, Moynagh Sullivan and James Woolley. I am grateful to colleagues at UCD Library and Special Collections for their work with the Poetry@UCD initiative, especially Ursula Byrne, Evelyn Flanagan and Eugene Roche. My students, past and present, test my ideas on poetry. I would like particularly to thank recent and current graduate students Jaclyn Allen, Amanda Bell, Paola Benchi, Colleen English, Ken Keating, Aoife Lynch and Jacqui Meisel for their enthusiasm and conversation. At Liverpool University Press, Anthony Cond and his team have been very supportive of the project and the readers of the initial manuscript offered many insights and suggestions from which the book has benefited. Thanks to Rachel Adamson and Lucy Frontani at Carnegie Book Production for their attention to production and design; I’m especially grateful to Irene Barry for permission to use her work on the cover of this book. My greatest ix contemporary irish women poets debts are to my family – to my father and my sisters for their interest and support, as well as their patience. Andrew Carpenter has, as usual, worked harder than anyone to bring my scholarly planets into alignment. This book is dedicated to him. Earlier versions of some sections in this book have appeared as: ‘A Way of Going Back: Memory and Estrangement in the Poetry of Paula Meehan’, An Sionnach: A Journal of Literature, Culture and the Arts 5.1–2 (Spring/Fall 2009), pp. 127–39; ‘Joyful Mysteries: Language and Spirituality in Medbh McGuckian’s Recent Poetry’, in Elke d’Hoker, Raphaël Ingelbien and Hedwig Schwall (eds), Irish Women’s Writing (Berne: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 41–56; ‘What She Lost and How: Eavan Boland’s London Childhood’, in Thomas Herron (ed.), Irish Writing London, vol. 2, Post-War to the Present (London: Continuum, 2012), pp. 33–46; and ‘Being in Span: The Space of the Subject in Catherine Walsh’s City West’, Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry 5.2 (2014), pp. 31–46. For permission to quote the work of these poets, thanks are due to the following publishers: Carcanet Press for permission to quote from the work of Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Sinéad Morrissey and Mary O’Malley. Dedalus Press for permission to quote from the work of Eva Bourke. Gallery Press for permission to quote from the work of Sara Berkeley, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Vona Groake, Medbh McGuckian and Paula Meehan. Pan Macmillan for permission to quote from the work of Colette Bryce. Random House for permission to quote from the work of Leontia Flynn. Invisible Books and Shearsman Press for permission to quote from the work of Catherine Walsh. Wild Honey Press, Publishing Genius and Miami University Press for permission to quote from the work of Mairéad Byrne. W. W. Norton and Company for permission to quote from the work of Eavan Boland. x Abbreviations abbreviations BA Medbh McGuckian, The Book of the Angel (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2004) BH Mary O’Malley, The Boning Hall: New and Selected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 2002) BHT Sinéad Morrissey, Between Here and There (Manchester: Carcanet, 2002) BLH Mairéad Byrne, The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven (Baltimore, MD: Publishing Genius, 2010) CL Medbh McGuckian, Captain Lavender (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1995) CW Catherine Walsh, City West (Exeter: Shearsman, 2005) D Paula Meehan, Dharmakaya (Manchester: Carcanet, 2000) DR Leontia Flynn, Drives (London: Jonathan Cape, 2008) F Vona Groarke, Flight (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2002) FE Medbh McGuckian, The Face of the Earth (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2002) FM Medbh McGuckian, The Flower Master (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982; Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1993) FRT Colette Bryce, The Full Indian Rope Trick (London: Picador, 2005) HB Colette Bryce, The Heel of Bernadette (London: Picador, 2000) HTL Medbh McGuckian, Had I a Thousand Lives (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2002) IEMT Catherine Walsh, Idir Eatortha and Making Tents (London: Invisible Books, 1996) xi contemporary irish women poets J Eavan Boland, The Journey and Other Poems (Galway: Arlen House, 1986; Manchester: Carcanet, 1987) JS Vona Groarke, Juniper Street (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2006) KW Mary O’Malley, The Knife on the Wave (Galway: Salmon Press, 1997) MMW Paula Meehan, The Man Who Was Marked by Winter (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1991) MR Leanne O’Sullivan, The Mining Road (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2013) MSCM Mary Dorcey, Moving into the Space Cleared by Our Mothers (Galway: Salmon Press, 1991) NHB Mairéad Byrne, Nelson and the Huruburu Bird (Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wild Honey Press, 2003) OPH Vona Groarke, Other People’s Houses (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1999) P Eva Bourke, Piano (Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2011) PR Paula Meehan, Painting Rain (Manchester: Carcanet, 2012) PT Paula Meehan, Pillow Talk (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1994) PX Sinéad Morrissey, Parallax (Manchester: Carcanet, 2013) S Medbh McGuckian, Shelmalier (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1998) SD Vona Groarke, Spindrift (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2009) SH Vona Groarke, Shale (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1994) SPD Colette Bryce, Self-Portrait in the Dark (London: Picador, 2008) ST Sara Berkeley, Strawberry Thief (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2005) SV Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, The Second Voyage (Dublin: Gallery Press, 1986) TFV Sinéad Morrissey, There was Fire in Vancouver (Manchester: Carcanet, 1996) TG Eva Bourke, Travels with Gandolpho (Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2000) TP Mairéad Byrne, Talk Poetry (Oxford, OH: Miami University Press, 2007) xii abbreviations TV Eavan Boland, In a Time of Violence (Manchester: Carcanet, 1994) V Mary O’Malley, Valparaiso (Manchester: Carcanet, 2012) VH Sara Berkeley, The View from Here (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2010) VR Medbh McGuckian, Venus and the Rain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984; Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1994) VWE Paddy Bushe (ed.), Voices at the World’s Edge: Irish Poets on Skellig Michael (Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2010) WRU Colette Bryce, The Whole and Rain-domed Universe (London: Picador, 2014) X Vona Groarke, X (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 2014) xiii Introduction Memory, Estrangement and the Poetic Text introduction For Irish women poets, past and present exist in thematic and aesthetic alignment, making their treatment of memory of enduring importance to readers. Since the process of remembrance reveals as much about present needs as it does about past events, its conceptualization in the work of women poets reflects contemporary critical debate, as well as issues around the formation of Irish poetic traditions. In this way, to remember is to engage with a process of cultural evolution, perhaps even more than with calculated political change: ‘Images of the past change or remain the same […] to the degree that they fit into a changing or stable culture, a process that calls our attention away from cynical manipulations to an analysis of culture sui generis’.1 This study of contemporary women poets explores the function of memory in their work, examining the impact that both individual and cultural memory has on their creative processes. Their handling of poetic temporalities is of fundamental importance in exploring, whether obliquely or directly, their place in the tradition.