The Wind Beyond the Wall

(Hardback, New edition)

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The forty poems in this first book by an Irish writer explore a variety of traditional and contemporary themes that combine to create the modern Irish consciousness. Beginning with poems that look back forty years or more on a childhood spent in the fabled country of Sligo, the book moves effortlessly to present-day issues of raising a family and making sense of the political turmoil unique to the country. Throughout the collection, McBreen also grapples with the contemporary Irish womans fight to assert her independence, asserting her own generous autonomy in the process. McBreens readers will quickly recognize the foundations of one of the worlds great oral traditions behind these evocative lyrics, and they will come away knowing much more about everyday Irish life than they did before.

Author Bio

Joan McBreen's poetry collections are: Map and Atlas (Salmon Poetry, 2017), Heather Island (Salmon Poetry, 2009, reprinted 2013), Winter in the Eye - New and Selected Poems(Salmon Poetry, 2003), A Walled Garden in Moylough (Story Line Press and Salmon Poetry, 1995) and The Wind Beyond the Wall (Story Line Press, 1990). Joan McBreen was awarded an MA from University College, Dublin in 1997. Joan McBreen is from Sligo and now divides her time between Tuam and Renvyle, Connemara, Co. Galway. She has published five collections of poetry, the most recent being Map and Atlas. Her two anthologies are The White Page / An Bhileog Bhn - Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon Poetry, 2001) and The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets Poems and Essays (Salmon Poetry, 2009). In 2014 she produced a CD The Mountain Ash in Connemara - Selected Poems by Joan McBreen with original music and traditional airs composed by Glen Austin and performed by the RT Contempo String Quartet. In 2015 she brought out a broadside The Mountain Ash, a collaboration between the poet, visual graphic artist, Margaret Irwin West and printmaker Mary Plunkett. From Artisan House Publications, Letterfrack, Co. Galway it was launched at Clifden Arts Festival 2015. Together with reading and lecture tours of the US, McBreen is closely associated with most of the major literary festivals in Ireland. Her anthology The White Page / An Bhileog Bhn - Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets was published by Salmon Poetry in 2001 and is in its third reprint. Her poetry is published widely in Ireland and abroad and has been broadcast, anthologised and translated into many languages. Her CD The Long Light on the Land - Selected Poems, read to a background of traditional Irish airs and classical music, was produced by Ernest Lyons Productions, Castlebar, County Mayo in 2004. She has given readings and talks in many universities in the USA including Emory, Villanova, De Paul (Chicago), Cleveland, Lenoir Rhynne, N.C. and the University of Missouri- St. Louis. In 2010 she undertook a six week reading tour of Nebraska, Iowa and Alabama and in 2012 she read at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN and at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. During the months of October and November 2018 Joan McBreen undertook another US reading tour of Massachusetts, Georgia and Kentucky.