Joan McBreen

Life
1947- ; b. Sligo, worked as a primary school teacher; has assisted at Yeats International Summer School, the Clifden Arts Week, the Listowel Writers’ Week and the Cúirt International Festival of Literature (Galway); acts as Lit. Advisor and Co-ordinator of the Oliver St. John Gogarty Literary Festival at Renvyle House Hotel, since 2007; now lives at Tuam and Renvyle, Co. Galway;
 
her collections incl. The Wind Beyond the Wall (1990), A Walled Garden in Moylough (1995), Winter in the Eye: New and Selected Poems (2003), and Heather Island (2009); also ed. The White Page / An Bhileog Bhán: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets (1999) and ed., The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets: Poems & Essays (2009);
 
she has and given readings at Emory Univ., Villanova Univ., De Paul Univ., (Chicago), Cleveland Univ., Lenoir Rhynne College, N.C., and the University of Missouri-St.Louis.

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Works
Poetry Collections
  • The Wind Beyond the Wall (Brownsville: Story Line 1990), 52pp.
  • A Walled Garden in Moylough (Galway: Salmon 1995), [12], 51pp.
  • Winter in the Eye: New & Selected Poems (Cliffs of Moher: Salmon Poetry 2003), 91pp.
  • Heather Island (Cliffs of Moher: Salmon Press 2009), 51pp.;
Miscellaneous
  • ed., The White Ban/An Bhileog Bhán [rep.] (Galway: Salmon Poetry 2001), 12], xii, 298pp. [some in Irish].
  • ed., The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets: Poems & Essays (Moher: Salmonpoetry 1009), q.pp.
Discography
  • The Long Light on the Land: Selected Poems, read to a background of traditional Irish airs and classical music (Castlebar: Ernest Lyons Prods. 2004), CD [52 mins].

Criticism
Rand Brandes, ‘Interview with Joan McBreen’, in Colby Quarterly, 28 (Dec. 1992), pp.260-64.

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Quotations
See “Winter” by Joan McBreen [attached].

 

References
Joan McBreen has a website at www.joanmcbreen.com [accessed 08.08.2009]

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