Medbh McGuckian

Standard Name: McGuckian, Medbh
Birth Name: Medbh McCaughan
Married Name: Medbh McGuckian
MMG , who lives in Northern Ireland, is well-regarded among contemporary poets writing in English. She began by writing a very private and reserved poetry. Using images from the home and from nature, she explored the female body and the female psyche, and strove to access the intimacy of a woman's spirit through the concrete aspects of a woman's life: I believe wholly in the beauty and power of language, the music of words, the intensity of images to shadow-paint the inner life of the soul.
qtd. in
Contemporary Authors. Gale Research, 1962–2024, Numerous volumes.
143
She was compared by critics to Marianne Moore , Elizabeth Bishop , and Emily Dickinson . In the course of her career a strong strain of the political emerged among her personal topics, and she has become both historian of and elegist for Ireland's violent story. She has published poetry in volumes and in periodicals, as well as broadsides and essays.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Carol Rumens
Until We Could Hardly See Them imagines the dead calling from the roadway on any passers-by to notice them, to remember them, not caring if the living take offence and say their dead are being...
Textual Features Adrienne Rich
This volume's title and epigraph are taken from The Great Gatsby. Like AR 's other works, Dark Fields of the Republic reflects a diverse group of artistic and social influences, which include the Bible...
Textual Features Germaine Greer
Women are a minority here, but well represented: Fleur Adcock , Anna Letitia Barbauld , Amy Clampitt , Olive Custance (Lady Alfred Douglas) , Emily Dickinson , Freda Downie , U. A. Fanthorpe , Vicki Feaver
Textual Production Seamus Heaney
When SH , then a schoolteacher, began writing poetry in the 1960s, one of his models was the Anglo-Saxon poetry studied on his degree course. When contemplating a translation from that language years later he...

Timeline

21 October 1803: Irish patriot Thomas Russell was hanged by...

National or international item

21 October 1803

Irish patriot Thomas Russell was hanged by the British authorities at Downpatrick prison.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Texts

McGuckian, Medbh. Captain Lavender. Gallery Press, 1994.
McGuckian, Medbh. Drawing Ballerinas. Gallery Press, 2001.
McGuckian, Medbh. Had I a Thousand Lives. Gallery Press, 2003.
McGuckian, Medbh. Horsepower Pass By! A Study of the Car in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney. Cranagh Press, 1999.
McGuckian, Medbh. Marconi’s Cottage. Gallery Press, 1991.
McGuckian, Medbh. On Ballycastle Beach. Oxford University Press, 1988.
McGuckian, Medbh. On Ballycastle Beach. Revised edition, Gallery Press, 1995.
Durcan, Paul et al. Paul Durcan, Brendan Kennelly, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian. British Council; Bloodaxe Books, 2 sound cassettes.
McGuckian, Medbh. Portrait of Joanna. Ulsterman Publications, 1980.
McGuckian, Medbh. Selected Poems, 1978-1994. Gallery Press, 1997.
McGuckian, Medbh. Shelmalier. Gallery Press, 1998.
McGuckian, Medbh, and Paul Muldoon. Single Ladies. Interim Press, 1980.
Carlisle, Anne. The Big Striped Golfing Umbrella. Editor McGuckian, Medbh, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1985.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Book of the Angel. Gallery Press, 2004.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Face of the Earth. Gallery Press, 2002.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Flower Master. Oxford University Press, 1982.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Flower Master. Revised, Gallery Press, 1993.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Greenhouse. N. Steane, 1982.
McGuckian, Medbh. The Soldiers of Year II. Wake Forest University Press, 2002.
Dhomhnaill, Nuala Ní. The Water Horse. Translators McGuckian, Medbh and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Gallery Press, 1999.
McGuckian, Medbh et al. Trio Poetry 2. Blackstaff Press, 1981.
McGuckian, Medbh, and Nuala Archer. Two Women, Two Shores. New Poets Series, 1989.
McGuckian, Medbh. Venus and the Rain. Oxford University Press, 1984.
McGuckian, Medbh. “Women Are Trousers”. Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities, edited by Kathryn Kirkpatrick, University of Alabama Press, 2000, pp. 157-89.