Medbh McGuckian facts for kids
Medbh McGuckian (born as Maeve McCaughan on August 12, 1950) is a famous poet from Northern Ireland. She is known for her unique and often dream-like poetry.
Contents
Biography
Early Life and Education
Medbh McGuckian was born Maeve McCaughan in North Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was the third of six children. Her father was a school headmaster, and her mother loved art and music.
Medbh went to Holy Family Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam. She then studied at Queen's University Belfast. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972. Two years later, in 1974, she received her Master of Arts degree.
An interesting fact about her name: her university teacher, the famous poet Seamus Heaney, wrote her name as "Medbh" when signing books for her. This is the Irish spelling of Maeve. She liked it and decided to use Medbh from then on. In 1977, she married John McGuckian, who was also a teacher and a poet.
Career as a Teacher and Writer
Medbh McGuckian has worked as a teacher in her hometown of Belfast. She taught at St. Patrick's College, Knock. She also worked as an editor.
She made history at Queen's University Belfast. From 1985 to 1988, she was the first female Writer in Residence there. This means she was a writer who worked at the university, helping students and sharing her knowledge. She also spent some time in 1991 as a visiting poet and creative writing teacher at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States.
Medbh McGuckian's Writings
Early Poems and Collections
Medbh McGuckian's first poems were published in 1980. These appeared in two small books called Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems and Portrait of Joanna. In the same year, she won an Eric Gregory Award.
In 1981, she worked with other poets, Damian Gorman and Douglas Marshall (poet), on a collection called Trio Poetry 2. Later, in 1989, she teamed up with Nuala Archer for Two Women, Two Shores.
Her first major collection of poems was The Flower Master, published in 1982. This book explored feelings after childbirth. It won several awards, including a Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and an Arts Council (Ireland) award in 1982. It also received an Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize in 1983. In 1989, she won the Cheltenham Prize for her collection On Ballycastle Beach.
Other Works and Awards
Medbh McGuckian has also edited a book of poems. It was called The Big Striped Golfing Umbrella: Poems by Young People from Northern Ireland (1985). She wrote a study about cars in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, titled Horsepower Pass By! (1999). She also helped translate poems from Irish into English. With Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, she translated The Water Horse (1999) by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.
A book called Selected Poems: 1978–1994 was published in 1997. Some of her more recent collections include The Book of the Angel (2004), The Currach Requires No Harbours (2007), and My Love Has Fared Inland (2008).
Medbh McGuckian has received more awards for her work. In 2002, she won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Single Poem. This was for her poem "She is in the Past, She Has This Grace". She has also been nominated twice for the Poetry Now Award. This was for The Book of the Angel in 2005 and for The Currach Requires No Harbour in 2007.
