Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

This collection of poems spans Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s poetic output from 1972 to 2001. A lifetime of sorts, though a remarkably consistent lifetime, if these poems are the sole evidence. Always respected in her native Ireland and in select centres beyond, she seemed to emerge into prominence with the awarding of the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2010 for her collection, The Sun Fish, published in 2009. Perhaps this Faber and Faber Selected Poems, published the previous year, helped promulgate that international attention.

The poems are brief (most no more than one page), elemental (usually fixated upon earth and water), periodically erudite (both classical and Catholic), sometimes personal, and, except in rare cases, almost hermetically sealed—preserving and transporting imagery that has no obvious connection to the world outside the poem. Or perhaps that last observation is more an admission of my own failing in reading, since many of the poems seemed powerful and heartfelt and yet remained inscrutable to me.

The most accessible of the poems are perhaps those that reference Odysseus’ interrupted journey home such as “The Swineherd” and “The Second Voyage”. Equally, there are numerous reference to water and earth, and the boundary that marks their engagement, as perhaps is fitting for an island poet. Religious imagery recurs, usually aligned to the movement of women through the church from novitiate to sisterhood. But women outside the church are also a focus of many of these poems, modest interiors perhaps, but rarely in the first person.

I don’t suppose I am an ideal reader for these poems. But I think if you are patient with them, give them space, and return to them a third or fourth time, they begin to yield a bounty. I will certainly return to them again and look forward to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s further collections.… (more)