Book contents
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction I
- Introduction II
- Chapter 1 Women in the Medieval Poetry Business
- Chapter 2 Seventeenth-Century Women’s Poetry in Ireland
- Chapter 3 The Oral Tradition
- Chapter 4 Archipelagic Ireland
- Chapter 5 Irish Romanticism
- Chapter 6 Mary Tighe in Life, Myth, and Literary Vicissitude
- Chapter 7 Masculinity, Nationhood, and the Irish Woman Poet, 1860–1922
- Chapter 8 The Eclipse of Dora Sigerson
- Chapter 9 Between Revivalist Lyric and Irish Modernism
- Chapter 10 The Other ‘Northern Renaissance’
- Chapter 11 Rematriating Mid-Century Modernism
- Chapter 12 Accidental Irishness and the Transnational Legacy of Lola Ridge
- Chapter 13 Crisis and Renewal: Irish-Language Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 14 The Poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and the Indivisibility of Love
- Chapter 15 Biddy Jenkinson
- Chapter 16 Bilingual Poetry
- Chapter 17 Catholicism in Modern Irish Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 18 1970s–80s Feminism
- Chapter 19 The Art of Fabrication
- Chapter 20 Eavan Boland, History and Silence
- Chapter 21 Paula Meehan and the Public Poem
- Chapter 22 Formalism and Contemporary Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 23 ‘A Song Said Otherwise’
- Chapter 24 Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry, beyond the Now
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 15 - Biddy Jenkinson
Voices from Limbo
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- A History of Irish Women’s Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction I
- Introduction II
- Chapter 1 Women in the Medieval Poetry Business
- Chapter 2 Seventeenth-Century Women’s Poetry in Ireland
- Chapter 3 The Oral Tradition
- Chapter 4 Archipelagic Ireland
- Chapter 5 Irish Romanticism
- Chapter 6 Mary Tighe in Life, Myth, and Literary Vicissitude
- Chapter 7 Masculinity, Nationhood, and the Irish Woman Poet, 1860–1922
- Chapter 8 The Eclipse of Dora Sigerson
- Chapter 9 Between Revivalist Lyric and Irish Modernism
- Chapter 10 The Other ‘Northern Renaissance’
- Chapter 11 Rematriating Mid-Century Modernism
- Chapter 12 Accidental Irishness and the Transnational Legacy of Lola Ridge
- Chapter 13 Crisis and Renewal: Irish-Language Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 14 The Poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and the Indivisibility of Love
- Chapter 15 Biddy Jenkinson
- Chapter 16 Bilingual Poetry
- Chapter 17 Catholicism in Modern Irish Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 18 1970s–80s Feminism
- Chapter 19 The Art of Fabrication
- Chapter 20 Eavan Boland, History and Silence
- Chapter 21 Paula Meehan and the Public Poem
- Chapter 22 Formalism and Contemporary Women’s Poetry
- Chapter 23 ‘A Song Said Otherwise’
- Chapter 24 Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry, beyond the Now
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Although a major Irish-language poet, Biddy Jenkinson is perhaps best known for forbidding the translation of her work into English, calling her decision ‘a small rude gesture to those who think that everything can be harvested and stored without loss in an English-speaking Ireland’. Yet the picture that emerges from her work is anything but that of a Gaelic puritan. Jenkinson’s world is not one of loss and lamentation for a vanished past, but of vibrant immersion in mythopoeia of sex, myth, and monstrosity. In her work on County Wicklow, where she has long been resident, she excavates colonial history, exploring the points of connection between the colonial Pale and its wild Gaelic Other. In her work on the cannibal hag figure Mis, she vividly recuperates feminine monstrosity as a poetic force to be reckoned with. The linguistic energy of Jenkinson’s work combined with the obscurity it inhabits, as difficult and scholarly work (though often very funny too), makes her an exemplary representative of the submerged Gaelic bardic tradition.
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- A History of Irish Women's Poetry , pp. 270 - 285Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021