Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
“A Deep Ocean One Can Plunge Into”: An Interview with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s newest book The Mother House was published in the US this April, and it has been gaining praise across the board, including being chosen for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award. Despite finishing out the semester at home, WFU Press intern Emelyn Hatch conducted an interview with the poet via email to dig deeper into this shining collection.
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Direction” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Searching about again to find my father
I must take a step backwards, for in the time
since I last saw him he has moved and changed
more than in all of his life—
Poem of the Week: “Curtain” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
I laid myself down and slept on the map of Europe,
It creaked and pulled all night and when I rose
In a wide hall to the light of a thundery afternoon
The dreams had bent my body and fused my bones
And a note buzzed over and again and tuned for the night.
Poem of the Week: “Rugă / Prayer” by Ileana Mălăncioiu
In today’s selection for National Translation Month, we are featuring a Romanian poem by Ileana Mălăncioiu, translated by Irish poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin in her collection titled Legend of the Walled-Up Wife. As Ní Chuilleanáin writes in the preface to the book, “Mălăncioiu’s writing is valued in Romania as a moral force. A courageous critic of the former…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Jesse” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Jesse As you lie in sleep there grows like a lung inflating A tree out of your navel, enlarging and toppling Into its perfection when the leaves and the fruit are soft as air, Are drenched like capillaries, and as they swell They become transparent and fade away: The true tree of knowledge which is…
Continue ReadingVideo Highlights from Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Reading at Wake Forest
We began this glorious National Poetry Month with a visit from Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, who gave a reading at Wake Forest on April 4, 2016. As we near the end of April, we wanted to share some of the joys of that evening with you. Today we feature one of her poems from The Boys of Bluehill, a…
Continue ReadingIntroducing: The Boys of Bluehill
Wake Forest University Press is proud to announce the arrival of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Boys of Bluehill. In her newest collection, Ní Chuilleanáin addresses the themes of music, religion, art, and language to create a beautiful union between revelatory imagery and an acute poetic sensibility. Of her work, Seamus Heaney remarked: “There is something second-sighted about Eiléan Ní Chulleanáin’s work….
Continue ReadingThe secret is out… Announcing our latest book, The Shack.
Today’s the day! It’s finally here! We’ve been waiting so long to tell you about our newest book, The Shack: Irish Poets in the Foothills and Mountains of the Blue Ridge, that it’s hard to believe we can finally talk about it. In The Shack, contemporary Irish poets reflect on their time in the foothills and mountains…
Continue ReadingHappy birthday to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Poem of the Week
Poem of the Week: “Snow” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
‘I thought of you then,’ she says, ‘flocking
On the edge of the same water —
The yearly walk by the banks–‘
As she stood by the calm water
And the snow kept faltering past,
And past the window where a man’s bare arm
Reaches for clothes and for matches.
Poem of the Week: “The Second Voyage” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
“Seascape” by John Fraser National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London It’s easy to compare Odysseus’ voyage to the voyage students undertake in college; whether a senior, junior, sophomore or freshman, those spiteful waves will rock you all year long. We mimic Odysseus as we fight against tests, illness, papers and uncomfortable experiences, and all…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Calendar Custom” from The Sun-fish
Calendar Custom What is the right name of that small red flower? It’s everywhere, spilling down over the stones In the sun, every year at just this time. The colour dims for a minute as the line of dust Follows the loud white van uphill, and just now The girls in the bar offer me…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Bessboro” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
This is what I inherit—
It was never my own life,
But a house’s name I heard
And others heard as warning
Poem of the Week: “The Door” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
The Door When the door opened the lively conversation Beyond it paused very briefly and then pushed on; There were sounds of departure, a railway station, Everyone talking with such hurried animation The voices could hardly be told apart until one Rang in a sudden silence: ‘The word when, that’s where you start’– Then they…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “The Call Has Been Answered” by Ileana Mălăncioiu
The Call Has Been Answered The call has been answered, this sun Has risen over the green field. The soul unfolding as a snail Slides out of his enclosing shield He dawdles across the long empty Space it seems he drowns In light he flourishes over the white wave Two melting jellied horns He feels…
Continue Reading‘Tis the season for poetry readings
Everyone knows that poetry is best when listened to, so kick back, relax and belatedly celebrate National Poetry Day with some readings from our poets. Ciaran Carson reading “Snow” from Belfast Confetti Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin reads from The Sun-Fish Paula Meehan reads her poem “Death of a Field” from Painting Rain Michael Longley reads “Harmonica” from his Collected Poems Vona…
Continue Reading“Legend of the Walled-up Wife” featured in The Antioch Review
The spring 2013 issue of The Antioch Review takes a thoughtful look at our recent volume, Legend of the Walled-up Wife, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s translations of Ileana Mălăncioiu’s poetry. Written under the Ceaușescu regime, the book has dark, chilling imagery throughout and critic Benjamin S. Grossberg writes: “Mălăncioiu often blurs the line between life and death, creating the sense…
Continue ReadingA Lil Bit of Lit Crit: “The Copious Dark” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
In his November 2010 review of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s The Sun-fish, William Logan of The New Criterion commented that “Ní Chuilleanáin loves this stillness, the timelessness of Ireland both passing and passed—stately, measured, the poems unfold in their own time, making very little concession to the reader. They’re full of material things, things with density…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Studying the Language” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Studying the Language On Sundays I watch the hermits coming out of their holes Into the light. Their cliff is as full as a hive. They crowd together on warm shoulders of rock Where the sun has been shining, their joints crackle. They begin to talk after a while. I listen to their accents, they…
Continue ReadingDid You Know…
We’re back! After weeks of working on redesigning our blog we have finally finished and are excited to post again. Today is the first in what will become a series of posts on little known facts about our poets. We will start with one of the poets who just joined us on our Women’s Anthology…
Continue Reading