Have modern Irish women poets lost their voice?
by Michael Todd Irish women writers – in fiction at least – have always had a presence in Irish literature through the 18th, 19th and especially the 20th centuries. And prominent women, such as the Anglo-Irish ascendency typified by Lady Gregory, were at the centre of the Irish literary renaissance. But Irish women poets haven’t fared as well. And no one’s quite sure why. Any quick review of Irish writing anthologies reveals lots of male poets, but relatively few modern Irish women. It’s a situation Jessie Lendennie, Irish publisher and editor of Salmon Books, hopes to rectify. Lendennie was in town promoting not only Irish women poets but her new release as well – a collection of women’s work entitled, The White Page: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets. Lendennie spoke about the plight of women writers in Ireland (“Irish Women Poets and their Place in Irish Literature”) at Atkinson College at the invitation of Atkinson’s Office of the Dean, Master, Students’ Association, the Departme
