Medbh McGuckian has published eleven collections of poems. She teaches creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast. Her most recent collection from Gallery Press is The Currach Requires No Harbours (2006). Her awards include the Rooney Prize, the Cheltenham Award, and, in 2002, the Forward Prize for Best Poem.

Eve Patten writes: ‘As a poet who relentlessly defamiliarises image and language, yet pursues the most traditional of poetic matter – emotion, sensibility and interiority – McGuckian is full of intriguing ambiguities. Embracing both personal and political spaces, her rich and surprising aesthetic continues to distinguish her among her Northern Irish contemporaries, her innovative poetic landscape demanding, at every stage, alternative means of critical engagement.’