Author Description
AS NEW softcover, clean text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT ex-library slight shelfwear / storage-wear; WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201601883 Medbh McGuckian (born as Maeve McCaughan on 12 August 1950) is a poet from Northern Ireland. She has worked as a teacher in her native Belfast at St. Patrick's College, Knock and an editor and is a former Writer in Residence at Queen's University, Belfast (1985–1988). She spent part of a term appointed as visiting poet and instructor in creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley (1991). Her first published poems appeared in two pamphlets, All The Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems and Portrait of Joanna, in 1980, the year in which she received an Eric Gregory Award. In 1981 she co-published Trio Poetry 2 with fellow poets Damian Gorman and Douglas Marshall, and in 1989 she collaborated with Nuala Archer on Two Women, Two Shores. Medbh McGuckian's first major collection, The Flower Master (1982), which explores post-natal breakdown, was awarded a Rooney prize for Irish Literature, an Ireland Arts Council Award (both 1982) and an Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize (1983). She is also the winner of the 1989 Cheltenham Prize for her collection On Ballycastle Beach (Wake Forest University Press). We recommend selecting Priority Mail wherever available. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.)
Menrva's Summary
THE PULSE
This collection of lyric poetry navigates the intersection of domestic intimacy and the elusive nature of identity. The speaker moves through a series of internal landscapes, utilizing dense, metaphorical language to examine the boundaries between the self and the external world. The poems operate within a framework of shifting perspectives, often blurring the lines between the physical environment and the psychological state of the narrator. The work challenges the reader to decode complex imagery that frequently draws upon themes of home, gender, and the natural world.
INSIDE THE PAGES
- Intricate, multi-layered metaphorical structures
- Focus on domestic spaces and interiority
- Exploration of the female experience and identity
- Use of surrealist imagery to disrupt conventional narrative
- Linguistic precision and experimental syntax
- Recurring motifs of nature, water, and light
- Meditative, often elliptical, rhythmic patterns
- Engagement with the tradition of Irish lyricism
THE COLLECTIVE ECHO
Readers and critics frequently highlight the challenging, hermetic nature of McGuckian's style, which demands close and repeated reading. Discussion often centers on her ability to transform mundane domestic objects into symbols of profound psychological complexity. Many observers note the balance between the fluidity of her language and the rigid, often claustrophobic atmosphere she constructs within her stanzas. The work is widely recognized for its technical sophistication and its refusal to offer easy interpretations of the poet's internal state. Scholars often point to these poems as significant contributions to contemporary Irish poetry due to their unique blend of personal history and abstract symbolism.
Page Count:
54
Publication Date:
1984-09-17
ISBN-10:
0192119621
ISBN-13:
9780192119629
Poetry
Contemporary Poetry
Irish literature
Lyric poetry