Catherine Phil MacCarthy Bücher

Daughters of the House, Catherine Phil MacCarthy’s fifth collection, opens with poems that arose during a residency in Paris. It begins with glimpses of that city in the present before reaching back to consider some of the many Irish artists who were drawn to and lived in the city, as well as the country they left behind. The poems reflect on moments in Irish history from the 1880s through the early 20th century, and honour historical figures such as Maud Gonne, Michael Davitt and Sarah Purser. The movement towards independence and the making of Ireland are preoccupations, as are the links between colonisation and globalisation.

Irish poet Catherine Phil MacCarthy's fourth collection of poems, The Invisible Threshold explores from several angles the idea of 'threshold' or the 'liminal', the state of being in transition from one moment to the next. These poems celebrate life with a deep sense of wonder. They capture transformational moments of experience where mortality and loss, as well as the ties between the body and spirit, are explored. Reconciliation with a mother's death brings "a sense of first breath on the earth" ('Facing the Rising Sun') and acknowledges that grief delivers a new freedom, where intense life is "open to pure being" ('Turning South') and the abundant energies of summer. Catherine Phil MacCarthy was born in Co. Limerick, in 1954 and educated at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, and Central School of Speech and Drama, London. Her collections of poetry include This Hour of the Tide (1994), the blue globe (1998) and Suntrap (2007). She has also published a novel, One Room an Everywhere (2003). She won the Fish International Poetry Prize in 2010, and is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review.