Arts and Culture: Alice Maher and Irish Readers

When Irish artist Alice Maher was commissioned to make drawings for the National Library of Ireland, she thought, naturally, about readers. Combine that with her interest in identities, particularly gendered identities, and you have her series, Lectores Mirabiles (Wonderful Readers). She gave us permission to use Lectores Mirabiles V for the cover of The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry, and we particularly love this cover, partly for its own power, and partly because it recalls … to us … Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin‘s poem, “Pygmalion’s Image,” and the line “a / green leaf of language comes twisting out of her mouth.”