Madam, - I write in response to Fiona McCann's article, "Tackling the Poetry Patriarchy" (November 2nd). I am the editor of a comprehensive study of Irish women's poetry, The White Page - An Bhileog Bhán - Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon Publishing, 1999, reprinted 2000, 2001, 2007).
Because of my work since 1995 in this field and as a working poet, I feel qualified to address some of the issues raised in your journalist's conversations with the named younger women poets, Leanne O'Sullivan, Caitriona O'Reilly, Leontia Flynn, Mary O'Donoghue and Colette Bryce.
Colette Bryce (b. 1970) is, for example, quoted as saying "There were some brilliant women poets that I had access to - Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Medbh McGuckian - but they were so few."
In the 1980s and 1990s there were many other fine women poets, writing in both English and Irish, north and south, together with the two poets mentioned here.
These women gave generously of their gifts and their time to emerging poets of both genders.
In a short letter to a newspaper it is impossible to name them all. However, poets Máire Mac an tSaoí, Leland Bardwell, Sheila O'Hagan, Deirdre Brennan, Moya Cannon, the late Eithne Strong, Jessie Lendennie, Rita Kelly, Eva Bourke, Rita Ann Higgins, Paula Meehan, Joan Newmann, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Mary O'Donnell and Claire O'Connor all deserve mention here.
I beg the forgiveness of the many other names I omit. They know who they are and the work they have been doing successfully for so many years, in Ireland and abroad.
Workshops and seminars have been conducted throughout Ireland and elsewhere, readings have taken place and mentoring undertaken by these courageous women, spearheaded indeed by Eavan Boland, to the benefit of writers and poets of both genders, often for very little, if any, financial reward.
Before the publication of my own study and that of Field Day Volume V (Cork University Press, 2002) with its fine contemporary poetry section, edited by Nuala Ní Domhnaill, there were indeed many anthologies of poetry which predominantly profiled the work of male poets.
These included the all-male anthology, The Inherited Boundaries - Younger Poets of the Republic of Ireland, edited by Sebastian Barry (1986). Therefore, it is an inaccuracy to state that "you wouldn't have an anthology of male poets".
In my experience, the task of trying to have families, to work and write, creates the same struggles for men and for women.
That some women poets "go quiet after a first or second book", to quote Caitriona O'Reilly, is a fact, but is also a fact for many men.
To conclude, and on a more hopeful note, a new anthology of younger Irish poets, born 1959 onwards, male and female, with a working title of Twenty-Four Contemporary Irish Poets - Poems and Essays, edited by this writer, is scheduled to appear early next year.
Perhaps this publication will begin to highlight issues touched on in Ms McCann's article and address the poetic concerns of a new generation of poets and readers of poetry alike. - Yours, etc,
JOAN McBREEN,
Belair Drive,
Tuam,
Co Galway.