Joan McBreenJoan 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 Poetr, 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 Bhán - 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 RTÉ 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 Bhán - 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. Read More Read Less