Paula Meehan is an Irish poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

. Born in Dublin in 1955, Meehan studied at Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

,and at Eastern Washington University

Eastern Washington University

Eastern Washington University is an American public, coeducational university located in Cheney, Washington.Founded in 1882, the university is academically divided into four colleges: Arts and Letters; Business and Public Administration; Science, Health and Engineering; and Social & Behavioral...

.

Biography

Paula Meehan was born in Dublin in 1955, the eldest of six children. She started school at St. Elizabeth's in Kingston upon Thames, England, where her parents had travelled to find work. She subsequently attended a number of primary schools around Dublin. She finished her primary education at the Central Model Girls' School in Gardiner Street.

She began her secondary education at St. Michael's Holy Faith Covent in Finglas

Finglas

-See also:* List of towns and villages in Ireland* List of abbeys and priories in Ireland...

 but was expelled for organising a protest march against the regime of the school. She studied for her Intermediate Certificate on her own and then went to Whitehall House Senior School, a vocational school, to study for her Leaving Certificate. Outside school she was a member of a dance drama group, became involved in band culture and, around 1970, began to write lyrics. Gradually composing song lyrics would give way to writing poetry.

At Trinity College, Dublin, (1972 -77) she studied English, History and Classical Civilization, taking five years to complete her Bachelor of Arts degree. This included one year off, spent travelling through Europe. While a student she was involved in street theatre and various kinds of performance.

After college she travelled again, spending long stretches in Greece, Germany, Scotland and England. She was offered a teaching fellowship at Eastern Washington University where she studied (1981 -83) with James J. McAuley in a two year programme which led to a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry. Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

 & Carolyn Kizer

Carolyn Kizer

Carolyn Ashley Kizer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet of the Pacific Northwest whose works reflect her feminism.-Life and work:...

 were among the distinguished visiting writers to have a profound influence on her work and on her thought.
She returned to Dublin in the mid-eighties. Her poem "Seed" was used in the 2010 Leaving Certificate examination as the unseen poem, although (critically) the department misprinted 'useful' as 'useless' which somewhat diminished the meaning of the poem.

Poetry

• Return and no Blame. Dublin: Beaver Row Press, 1984.
• Reading the Sky. Dublin: Beaver Row Press, 1986.
• The Man who was Marked by Winter. Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery, 1991. North American edition with foreword by Eavan Boland
  Eavan Boland
  -Biography:Boland's father, Frederick Boland, was a career diplomat and her mother, Frances Kelly, was a noted post-expressionist painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944. At the age of six, Boland's father was appointed Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom; the family followed him to London,...
  
  . Cheney, WA: Eastern Washington University Press, 1994.
• Pillow Talk. Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1994.
• Mysteries of the Home: A Selection of Poems. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1996.
• Dharmakaya. Carcanet: Manchester, 2000. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2001.
• Six Sycamores. With Marie Foley, sculpture and drawings. Belfast: Crowquill, 2004.
• Three Irish Poets: an anthology. Paula Meehan, Mary O'Malley
  Mary O'Malley
  Mary O'Malley was an Irish theatre director, the founder of Belfast’s Lyric Players Theatre.-Life:At the age of thirteen, whilst stopping off in Dublin, on the way to begin her first year at Loreto Convent, Navan, she attended the Abbey Theatre...
  
  , Eavan Boland. Edited by Eavan Boland. Manchester: Carcanet, 2003.
• Painting Rain. Manchester: Carcanet, 2009. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2009.

Plays

• Kirkle. Produced by Team Theatre Company. Dalkey School Project, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, 1995.
• The Voyage, Produced by the Team Educational Theatre Company of Dublin, The Ark, 1997.
• Mrs. Sweeney, in Rough Magic: First Plays. Edited by Siobhan Bourke, Dublin: New Island Books, 1999. Produced by Rough Magic Company, Dublin, 1997.
• Cell: a play in two parts for four actors and a voice. Dublin: New Island Books, 2000. Produced by Calypso Company, Dublin, 1999.
• Janey Mac is Going to Die. Dramatic monologue (28 mins). RTÉ Radio 1, 2001. Repeat 2002.
• The Wolf of Winter. Produced by the Abbey Company: Abbey Theatre of Dublin, 2003.
• Wuthering Heights. Two hour adaptation of the novel for RTÉ Radio 1, 2003. Repeat March 2004.
• The Lover. Dramatic monologue (35 mins) RTÉ Radio 1 January 2005.
• Threehander. One hour radio play, RTÉ Radio, 2005.
• Music for Dogs: Three radio plays. Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2008.

Other

Paula Meehan has also written poetry for film, for contemporary dance companies and for collaborations with visual artists; her poems have been put to music by songwriters (including Christy Moore) and composers. Her poetry has been extensively published in translation, including substantial collections in French and German.

Awards

• Arts Council Bursaries in Literature (1987, 1990)
• The Martin Toonder Award for Literature (1995)
• Elected Member of Aosdána (1996)
• The Butler Literary Award for Poetry presented by the Irish American Cultural Institute (1998)
• Denis Devlin Memorial Award for Dharmakaya (2001)
• PPI Award for Radio Drama, Best Play (2005)

Interviews

• "The Body Politic: Paula Meehan in Conversation with Jody Allen Randolph" (2009)
• Paula Meehan: Working with Metal. Documentary Film (15 min). Crowley, Elaine, Dir. Institute of Art, Design and Technology (2009).
• “‘Playing with the Ghosts of Words’: An Interview with Paula Meehan.” Luz Mar González Arias.(1999)

Further Reading

• Allen Randolph, Jody, ed. An Sionnach: Special Issue: Paula Meehan. Double Issue. An Sionnach 5.1 and 5.2 (Bealtaine/Spring and Samhain/Fall 2009).
• Allen Randolph, Jody. "Text and Context: Paula Meehan."
• Auge, Andrew. "The Apparitions of “Our Lady of the Facts of Life”: Paula Meehan and the Visionary Quotidian."
• Boland, Eavan. "Unfinished Business: The Communal Art of Paula Meehan."
• Collins, Lucy. "A Way of Going Back: Memory and Estrangement in the Poetry of Paula Meehan."
• Falci, Eric. "Meehan’s Stanzas and the Irish Lyric After Yeats."
• Fogarty, Anne. "'Hear Me and Have Pity': Rewriting Elegy in the Poetry of Paula Meehan."
• González Arias, Luz Mar. "'In Dublin’s Fair City'—Citified Embodiments in Paula Meehan."
• Holdridge, Jefferson. "The Wolf Tree: Culture and Nature in Dharmakaya and Painting Rain."
• Denn Jackson, Eileen. "The Lyricism of Abjection in Paula Meehan’s Drama of Imprisonment."
• Kirkpatrick, Kathryn. "'A Murmuration of Starlings in a Rowan Tree': Finding Gary Snyder in Paula Meehan’s Eco-Political Poetics."
• McCarthy, Thomas. "'None of us well fixed' – Empathy and its Aesthetic Power in Paula Meehan’s Poetry."
• McMullen, Kim. "'Snatch a song from a stranger’s mouth': The Stage Plays and Radio Dramas of Paula Meehan."
• Mulhall, Anne. "Memory, Poetry and Recovery: Paula Meehan’s Transformational Aesthetics."
• O’Malley, Mary. "City Centre."
• Poloczek, Katarzyna. "'Sharing Our Differences': Individuality and Community in the Early Work of Paula Meehan."
• Schrage-Früh, Michaela. "Transforming that Past”: The Healing Power of Dreams in Paula Meehan’s Poetry."
• Tortora-Lee, Karen. Review of The Cell. Dir. John Keating. The Fab Marquee. 18 Sep. 2009.
• Villar-Argáiz, Pilar. "'Act Locally, Think Globally': Paula Meehan’s Local Commitment and Global Consciousness."

External links

• Paula Meehan's page at Carcanet Press
• Paula Meehan's page at Wake Forest University Press
• Review of Cell
• Poetry International site with several poems
• 2009 video of Paula Meehan reading her poems