My Self, My Muse: Irish Women Poets Reflect on Life and Art

Abstract

A collection of essays written by well-known contemporary Irish women poets about their lives in relation to their own poetics. It is a conglomeration of voices around common themes, which have recently and forcefully emerged to permanently change Irish poetry. The experience of being women in a politically and religiously charged, male-dominated genre and country is one that transcends daily life by the need to articulate against the norm. Poets describe in their own words, the issues they confronted in their growth as poets and the strategies they developed to translate life into art.