Silence and Articulacy in the Poetry of Medbh McGuckian

Maureen E. Ruprecht Fadem is associate professor of English at the City University of New York, Kingsborough.

• Foreword: Reckoning With (Women’s) Silence(s): The Work of PoetryChapter 1: Home Is Where the Border Is: The Poetry of Medbh McGuckianIntroduction, Part I: Poetics of Silence: Language, Image, VoiceChapter 2: Silence | Speaking: The Secret-Spoken Language of PartitionChapter 3: Text | Image: Ut pictura poïesisChapter 4: Textuality | Intertextuality: Embedded Contingencies and the Tyranny of (Postcolonial) ComparativityIntroduction, Part II: Economies of Speaking: Production, Consumption, ConjuringChapter 5: Poïesis | Poïema: “Deep in your snow”: Coming to Be LocatedChapter 6: Privated | Worlded: “Absolutely not hermetic”: Iterations of Silence and the Borders of ArticulacyAfterword: History | Prosody: The Poet as Conjure Artist

This coherent and cohesive study offers a new and insightful reading of McGuckian’s work, one which, without dismissing other critical approaches, contextualizes them within a new historical perspective: that of imposed silence on a partitioned territory and population. Fadem argues that by articulating a new poetic discourse, McGuckian conjures bad energies, and is able to represent Northern Ireland in all its complexities. It is, then, good news that we have a new full-length research monograph on the poetry of Medbh McGuckian, one that pays homage to a woman poet who never left the country, and who is nowadays considered one of the finest poets of her generation.