Medbh McGuckian (born as Maeve McCaughan on 12 August 1950) is a poet from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

Biography

She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast.Irish women writers: an A-to-Z guide by Alexander G. Gonzalez
p. 200. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 2006. She was educated at Holy Family Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972 and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree in 1974 at

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. Maeve McCaughan adopted the Irish spelling of her name, Medbh, when her university teacher,

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

, wrote her name that way when signing books to her. She married a teacher and poet, John McGuckian, in 1977. She has worked as a teacher in her native Belfast at St. Patrick's College, Knock and an editor and was the first female Writer in Residence at

(1985–1988). She spent part of a term appointed as visiting poet and instructor in creative writing at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

(1991).

Work

McGuckian's first published poems appeared in two pamphlets, ''Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems'' and ''Portrait of Joanna'', in 1980, the year in which she received an

Eric Gregory Award The Eric Gregory Award is a literary award given annually by the Society of Authors for a collection by British poets under the age of 30. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr. Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets. In 2021, the seve ...

. 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 The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature was created in 1976 by the Irish American businessman Dan Rooney, owner and chairman of the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers franchise and former US Ambassador to Ireland. The prize is awarded to Irish writers aged ...

, an

Arts Council (Ireland) The Arts Council (sometimes called the Arts Council of Ireland; legally ga, An Chomhairle Ealaíon) is the independent "Irish government agency for developing the arts." About It was established in 1951 by the Government of Ireland, to encour ...

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). Medbh McGuckian has edited an anthology, ''The Big Striped Golfing Umbrella: Poems by Young People from Northern Ireland'' (1985) for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, written a study of the car in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, entitled ''Horsepower Pass By!'' (1999), and has translated into English (with

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (; born 1942) is an Irish poet and academic. She was the Ireland Professor of Poetry (2016–19). Biography Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork in 1942. She is the daughter of Eilís Dillon and Professor Cormac Ó Cuille ...

) ''The Water Horse'' (1999), a selection of poems in Irish by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. A volume of ''Selected Poems: 1978–1994'' was published in 1997, and among her latest collections are ''The Book of the Angel'' (2004) ''The Currach Requires No Harbours'' (2007), and ''My Love Has Fared Inland'' (2008). Recent criticism of McGuckian has pointed to her extensive use of unacknowledged source material, from Russian poetry and elsewhere , a discovery that may have motivated her decision to name (on the acknowledgements page) the primary source for her collection, ''The Currach Requires No Harbour''. This work does features a poem inspired by the lives of the Wrens of the Curragh. She was awarded the 2002 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem) for her poem "She is in the Past, She Has This Grace". She has been shortlisted twice for the Poetry Now Award for her collection, ''The Book of the Angel'', in 2005, and for ''The Currach Requires No Harbour'', in 2007.

Bibliography

Poetry collections

* ''Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems'' (chapbook), Interim Press, 1980 * ''Portrait of Joanne'' (chapbook), Ulsterman, 1980 * (With Damian Gorman and Douglas Marshall) ''Trio Poetry'', Blackstaff Press, 1981 * ''The Flower Master'', Oxford University Press, 1982, reprinted as The Flower Master and Other Poems, Gallery Press (County Meath), 1993 * ''The Greenhouse'', Steane, 1983 * ''Venus and the Rain'', Oxford University Press, 1984 * ''On Ballycastle Beach'', Oxford University Press, 1988, reprinted, Gallery Books, 1995 * (With Nuala Archer) ''Two Women, Two Shores'', New Poets, 1989 * ''Marconi's Cottage'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 1991 * ''Captain Lavender'', Wake Forest University Press (Winston-Salem, NC), 1995 * ''Selected Poems, 1978–1994'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 1997 * ''Shemalier'', Wake Forest University Press (Winston-Salem, NC), 1998 * ''Drawing Ballerinas'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2001 * ''The Face of the Earth'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2002 * ''Had I A Thousand Lives'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2003 * ''The Book of the Angel'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2004 * ''My Love Has Fared Inland'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2008 * ''The Currach Requires No Harbours'', Wake Forest University Press (Winston-Salem, NC), 2010 * ''The High Caul Cap'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2012 * ''Blaris Moor'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2015 * ''Love, The Magician'', Arlen House (County Dublin), 2018 * ''Marine Cloud Brightening'', Gallery Press (County Meath), 2019

Other works

* (Editor) ''The Big Striped Golfing Umbrella: Poems by Young People from Northern Ireland'', illustrated by Anne Carlisle, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast, 1985 * ''Horsepower Pass By! A Study of the Car in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney'', University of Ulster, Cranagh Press, Coleraine, 1999 * (Translator, with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin) ''The Water Horse: Poems in Irish by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill'', Gallery Press, 1999

References

External links

Profile. Emory UniversityMedbh McGuckian's page at Wake Forest University Press
*Interview wit

in ''Qualm''
Wake Forest University Press
North American publisher of McGuckian *Videos of readings and facsimiles of manuscripts in the Irish Poetry Reading Collectio
UCD Digital Library
University College Dublin
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Medbh McGuckian papers, 1964-2006
*
Wrapping Our Heads Around Copies of this Book: To Medbh McGuckian at Seventy
'. Daniela Theinová, ed. Special Issue of ''Review of Irish Studies in Europe'' 4.2 (2021), available in open access {{DEFAULTSORT:McGuckian, Medbh 1950 births 21st-century women writers from Northern Ireland Academics of Queen's University Belfast Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Aosdána members Chapbook writers Irish women poets Living people Schoolteachers from Belfast Women poets from Northern Ireland