Joan McBreen

Heather Island

Heather Island Through their simple, plain-spoken respect for the ordinary forces of the landscape she loves - for its fauna and flora, its "season of stillness," its "late blackberries ruined by rain", or its "disconsolate cry of the lost" - the poems in Joan McBreen's quietly lyrical third collection compose a settlement for the heart, even a site for soul-pondering.

In brief elegies and celebrations her poems address losses, local phenomena, familial transitions, fashioning language-moments of subdued rapture (bird wings "the colour of opals") or sharply accented nostalgia (living away from Ireland, she insists that "one seashell to hold close/ to my ear would do,/ and rain on my face").

"I sing my own song," she says in one poem, and in the best of these poems her notes ring sweet and clear, so even winter clouds can "break, letting in such light."
Review by Eamon Grennan, 2009.

In this, her fourth collection, Joan McBreen interrogates loss and completes a tentative journey of renewal. A quiet strength sustains the consistently elegiac mood of "Heather Island". This poet of autumn and diminishing light revisits the shapes and colours of Tully lake and mountain in Connemara, the 'browning bracken' and 'the late blackberries'. But McBreen also travels far beyond the comfort of the familiar, to South America, to Borges and Neruda, to the mysteries of passing time and death. There is a serenity and sense of liberation, in her poems of acceptance, of 'souls set free/wheeling in the wind/unhurried/in a vast sky/beyond sound'.
Review by Geraldine Mitchell, 2009.

"Heather Island" a new collection by Joan McBreen will be launched at Kennys Gallery and Bookshop, Liosban, Galway on April 2nd at 6pm to 6.30pm. Guest Speaker, poet Gabriel Fitzmaurice. Read Gabriel's introduction on the night here.

"Heather Island" will have a Poetry Ireland launch on April 9th at the Unitarian Church, St.Stephen's Green, at 6pm to 6.30pm (Guest Speaker to be confirmed).

The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets - Poems and Essays

The Watchful Heart The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets: Poems and Essays is an anthology of the work of twenty-four Irish poets born in the last fifty years. It contains biographical and bibliographical details of each contributor, together with photographs. All poets included have published at least two collections of poetry. Poetry in Irish with translations is also included. None of the poetry in this anthology has previously been published in collection form and with a few exceptions, the essays have not been published before. This anthology has been compiled and edited by poet Joan McBreen, whose previous anthology The White Page - An Bhileog Bhán: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon Poetry 1999) is now in its third reprint.

Publication - Spring 2009 The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets - Poems and Essays will be launched at Kennys Gallery, and Bookshop, Liosban, Galway on May 1st at 6.6.30pm. Guest Speaker, Brendan Flynn, Director, Clifden Arts Week, Clifen, Connemara, Co. Galway.

"The Watchful Heart" will have a Poetry Ireland launch on May 21st at the Unitarian Church, St. Stephen's Green, at 6-6 30pm. Guest Speaker, Poet and critic, Gerald Dawe. Read Gerald's introduction on the night here

The Long Light on the Land (CD)

The Long Light on the Land The Long Light on the Land is a selection of Joan McBreen's poetry read to a background of traditional Irish airs and classical music on CD.

It was launched at the 45th Yeats International Summer School in Sligo on Thursday, August 5th, 2004 by Professor Bernard O'Donoghue.

"It is unusual for a poet´s spoken voice to match perfectly the voice and temper of their poems. But Joan McBreen´s compact disc is a delight from start to finish because the warmth of her voice and the evocative poetry of place that she delights in are perfectly attuned to the musical settings". Bernard O'Donoghue read more...
XHTML | CSS | AAA  © Copyright 2004 Joan McBreen.