Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's Collected Poems gathers nine collections of
poetry, from Acts and Monuments (1972) to The Mother House (2020),
as well as new poems and translations. Her poetry is scrupulously
controlled but also continuously startling, using the language of
history, religion, landscape, and myth. Travelers, pilgrims, and
women--especially the veiled subject of the nun--remind us of our
deepest inner sanctum with its litany of spiritual truths, human fears,
and needs. These images also catalogue the importance of the ordinary
and the domestic as metaphors for human experiences and emotions. Ní
Chuilleanáin allows those who have been silenced by history to surface
in art as surreal but living presences. It is now unquestionably
apparent that she is one the major poets in contemporary Ireland.