"Breaking the Blue"

A Study of Female Voices in Contemporary Irish Poetry

I have spent the last year acquainting myself with the poetry of several contemporary Irish women poets. Though each poet has a voice and style all her own, there are recurring themes throughout their collective work. These themes are intrinsically connected to feminist and postmodern ideology. In terms of both form and content these female poets embody ideas of non-linearity, threshold space, webbed patterns, multiplicity, and androgyny.

These themes are central to women' s writing, for women live at the boundaries, or edges of society; their work, also, is pushed to the margins. Irish women are marginalized a second time according to their race, culture and nationality. Thus ideas of limitation and boundary are inherent to the poetry I study. Some poets inhabit this threshold space by writing in both Irish and English--a physical representation of the split-identity. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill writes only in Irish and her fellow Irish poets translate most of her work. I have not included her poetry within my work (for I do not speak Irish and would prefer to read the original), but this idea of duality is vital to my subject matter and my project.

Medbh McGuckian, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, and Eavan Boland are the central figures within my project, for I found particular similarities between these three women. Ideas of motherhood, Irish identity, communication, feminine space, and the unconscious surface within the work of all three poets. My original goal was to collect and study their different images and ideas, and create a continuous dialogue between their voices and my own opinions concerning Irish women's poetry. However, as my studies progressed, I became entrapped, entangled within the work of one woman--MedbhMcGuckian. Her images and her rhythm compleltely seduced me and I could not escape her "truth rooms" (title of one of McGuckian's poems). Within McGuckian's work I found the duality I sought; she embodies both the strong and the gentle, the beautiful and the violent, the conscious and the unconscious realms. In terms of content and imagery McGuckian de-genders the poetic space, but according to rhythm and style there is an undeniable femininity. The poet herself is a contradiction with her "well-earthed" exterior contrasting the quiet, whispering voice within that body. (The highlight of my own thesis process was when I interviwed McGuckian over the phone--I got to hear that tiny, whispering voice).

In my mind, McGuckian is the most controversial poet in Ireland right now. Her style is unique, her poems are complicated, and she forces the reader to work for "meaning." Her poetry is about process, just like postmodern work and hypertext work. The reader must experience the poem for herself, for meaning lies within the process. McGuckian captures me within her poetic space so that I might struggle, and experience, and feel my own imaginative power at work.

Thus my thesis came to focus on Medbh McGuckian's work and how her poetry particularly embodies the ideology inherent to the project of many female poets, and many Irish female poets. Boland and Ní Chuilleanáin provide context and insight into these theories/ideas as well. In fact, this project stemmed from my initial reading of Boland's "Anna Liffey" which reverberated through my mind and my "secret spaces" (McGuckian). But it was McGuckian that pulled me in and never let me go.

Just as these women have carried me from room to room--the various feminine spaces and images within their poems--I invite you to travel through each of my rooms (hypertext boxes/nodes) and come dance in "secret spaces" of these Irish women. Come dancing into the depths of the unconscious realm, the poetic imagination, the female essence--come break the "blue."