'Her
language is like the inner lining of consciousness, the inner
lining of English itself, and it moves amphibiously between the
dreamlife and her actual domestic and historical experience as
a woman in late twentieth century Ireland.'
— Seamus Heaney
Published
in 1997, generous selections from Medbh McGuckian's previous five
books serve as an introduction to this gloriously gifted — and
pioneering — poet, as a stocktaking moment to reconsider her
luxuriant constructions, and as a welcome occasion to learn further how
to receive the signals of her opulent imagination.
The sensual, rhapsodic implications of her early work and the engagement of more recent poems with the politics of her native province represent a convincing vision. Selected Poems marries intellectual and emotional courage in vital language, exhilarating image, and beguiling art.
