These essays are revised versions of lectures given at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco and address some of the most exciting developments in Irish poetry over the last thirty years, concentrating especially on the work of Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Vona Groarke and Sinéad Morrissey. Irish Poetry after Feminism also includes forthright debate between the contributors about the relations between ideology and poetics. Gathering some of the finest critics, the volume makes an important contribution to one of the central debates about Irish literature.

'Feminism and Irish poetry are natural allies, not antagonists; to posit them otherwise is to declare the redundancy of art in its capacity to change lives on its own terms. With such an understanding, students of the topic of Irish poetry after feminism are released to seek out its neglected aspect in an investigation of Irish feminism after poetry, in confidence that relations of hospitality and exchange, rather than those of absolutism and hierarchy, can be expected to prevail between the art form and the intellectual, social and political tradition concerned.' Catriona Clutterbuck

Contents

Justin Quinn: Introduction

Moynagh Sullivan. Irish Poetry after Feminism: In Search of 'Male Poets'

Peter McDonald. The Touch of a Blind Man: Forms, Origins and 'Hermeneutics' in Poetry

Catriona Clutterbuck. An Unapproved Alliance: Feminism and Form in the Irish Poetry Debate

Derek Mahon: First Principles

Fran Brearton. On Derek Mahon's First Principles

Lucy Collins. Northeast of Nowhere: Vona Groarke, Sinéad Morrissey and Post-Feminist Spaces

Selina Guinness. The Annotated House: Feminism and Form

Leontia Flynn. On the Sofa: Parody & McGuckian

David Wheatley. That They May Be Damned: Samuel Beckett and the Poetry of Misogyny