Tackling the catastrophic canonical neglect of Irish women poets and writers

Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870–1970 edited by Dr. Lucy Collins. Copyright Date: 2012. Published by: Liverpool University Press

Pictured: Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870–1970 edited by Dr. Lucy Collins. Copyright Date: 2012. Published by: Liverpool University Press

This is an excerpted article published in the Irish Times as Tackling the catastrophic canonical neglect of Irish women poets and writers: ‘We need the voices of women in our national cultural narrative’ on Fri, Sep 27, 2019 (Irish Times Newspaper). The article was written in response to articles by Sinead Gleeson “A profound deafness to the female voice (The Irish Times, April 18th, 2018) and Deirdre Falvey “Two-thirds of published poets are male, so does poetry have a gender issue?” (The Irish Times, August 17th, 2019.)

Sinead Gleeson, Article URL: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-profound-deafness-to-the-female-voice-1.3467144
Deirdre Falvey, Article URL: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/two-thirds-of-published-poets-are-male-so-does-poetry-have-a-gender-issue-1.3984922 
Research Pioneers 5: Lucy Collins Article URL: https://irishwomenswritingnetwork.com/2020/02/17/research-pioneers-5-lucy-collins/
Christine Murray, Article URL: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/tackling-the-catastrophic-canonical-neglect-of-irish-women-poets-and-writers-1.4031397#.XY3NIfZTR9s.twitter
The above-linked articles  and pages are archived at RASCAL (QUB) Article URL: http://www.rascal.ac.uk/institutions/fired-irish-women-poets-and-canon/tackling-catastrophic-canonical-neglect-irish-women

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(published Irish Times 27/09/2019)

Faced with the catastrophic canonical neglect of Irish women poets and writers in very real terms, there are many responses. Those of interrogation, of anger, of reclamation and of healing. These responses have all occurred, are continuing to occur among women writers across literary genres.

In her article, A profound deafness to the female voice (The Irish Times, April 18th, 2018), Sinéad Gleeson examines our responses as the women who have been left to reclaim our narrative heritages. Once again, it is up to women to use their time to respond, to do the corrective work of calling out male editors, and how this eats up their creative time, steering the focus away from their own work.

Re-reading Gleeson’s article, I was struck by the above because of the truth of her statement. In the almost two years since the publication of The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets (2017) a melt of activity has occurred. Fired! Irish Women Poets was part of a response to that othering of women poets but it fed into other meetings, voices and attempts to work out, to formulate responses to neglect and omission that appears endemic in Irish literature.

(read more here)