Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish poet who writes in both Irish and English.

Biography

Doireann Ní Ghríofa was born in Galway in 1981, but grew up in County Clare. She now lives in County Cork.

Ní Ghríofa has published widely in literary magazines in Ireland and abroad, such as Poetry, The Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Prairie Schooner, and The Stinging Fly.[1] In 2012 her poem "Fáinleoga" won the Wigtown Award for poetry written in Scottish Gaelic.[2] Ní Ghríofa was selected for the prestigious Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award 2014 - 2015.[3]

In 2016 her book Clasp was shortlisted for The Irish Times Poetry Now Award, the national poetry prize of Ireland[4] and was awarded the Michael Hartnett Award.[5] She was also awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2016.

A trilingual collaborative pamphlet written with Choctaw poet LeAnne Howe appeared in 2017.[6]

In 2018, Ní Ghríofa received the Premio Ostana literary award (Italy) [7] and was chosen as a Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow [8] at Queen's University Belfast.

Ní Ghríofa collaborated with the artist Alice Maher on the limited edition book Nine Silences published by Salvage Press in 2018.[9]

She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award Fellowship. [10]

In 2020 her book Ghost in the Throat won the An Post Irish Book of the Year award, the Foyles Non-fiction Book of the Year award and the Hodges Figgis Irish Book of the Year award.[11]The book was largely written as she sat in her car on the roof of a multi-storey car park in Ballincollig, after dropping her daughter to creche.[12]

Bibliography

Poetry collections

• Résheoid (Coiscéim, 2011)
• Dúlasair (Coiscéim, 2012)
• Dordéan, do Chroí / A Hummingbird, your Heart (Smithereens Press, 2014) [13]
• Clasp (Dedalus Press, 2015; ISBN 978-1910251027)
• Oighear (Coiscéim, 2017)
• Lies (Dedalus Press, 2018; ISBN 9781910251393)
• Singing, Still - A Libretto for the 1847 Choctaw Gift to the Irish for Famine Relief [14]

Prose

• A Ghost in the Throat (Tramp Press), 2020

Critical response

Of Ní Ghríofa's book Clasp, Maya Catherine Popa in Poetry wrote: "The poems excel in their consideration of motherhood, particularly its paradoxical losses and gains, separation and unity… In Ní Ghríofa’s English debut, what seem to be long-considered obsessions are explored with tenderness and unflinching curiosity. The collection’s section titles, “Clasp,” “Cleave,” “Clench,” suggest the muscularity of attachment to the past, place, and the body that drives the poetic impulse."[15]

According to Clíona Ní Riordáin of Southword, "The woman’s body is central to the collection, highlighted, visible, unconquered. Forgotten bones are reclaimed, gendered territory is staked out; it is clear that Ní Ghríofa’s has a voice which will not be silenced… In Clasp Ní Ghríofa has signalled that she is a poetic force to be reckoned with."[16]

References

1. Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Ennis Bookclub Festival.
2. "2012 Winners - Gaelic", Wigtown Book Festival.
3. Gerard Beirne, "Doireann Ní Ghríofa selected for the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award" Archived 2014-07-22 at the Wayback Machine, Numéro Cinq.
4. "2016 Poetry Now Shortlist"
5. "Two poets to share Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2016 - What's on - Limerick Leader". www.limerickleader.ie. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
6. "Choctaw and Irish Poets Combine"
7. "Doireann Ní Ghríofa - Premio Giovani"
8. "Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry"
9. "100 Archive".
11. "An Post Irish Book of the Year 2020 revealed". www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
12. "She's there in that gathering of ghosts I carry with me-author Doireann Ní Ghríofa on the 18th century poet who has haunted her since her teens". www.independent.ie. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
13. "SP8 - 'Dordéan, do Chroí -- A Hummingbird, your Heart' by Doireann Ní Ghríofa", Smithereens Press.
14. "Singing, Still".
15. "Poetry Magazine Review"
16. "Southword Review"