My Self, My Muse

Book excerpt: A unique look into the minds and creative processes of contemporary Irish women poets, this book focuses on the transformation of their life experiences into poetry that blends personal identity with national identiry. It assembles many voices around common themes that are emerging to change Irish poetry permanently. Patricia Boyle Haberstroh, whose book Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets was a Choice Outstanding Academic book in 1996, shows in this new work how nine of the most prolific Irish women writers generate their poetry, broadening our understanding of the context of the poems. She pairs each author's verse with a companion (and often autobiographical) prose piece to illuminate the ways in which the poetry expresses the poet's personal experience. As women in a politically and religiously charged, male-dominated genre and country, these poets feel compelled to transcend daily life by articulating against the "norm." In this book, they describe the issues they confronted in their growth as poets and the strategies they developed to translate life into art. In linking these poets—drawn from Northern Ireland and England as well as the Republic of Ireland—Haberstroh throws into relief the characteristics that define their unique, individual subjects, themes, and styles.