Blaris Moor

Medbh McGuckian extended the range of Irish poetry. Her gloriously mysterious work calls to mind the rhapsodic utterances of Emily Dickinson and (though with more sensuality) an older contemporary, John Ashbery.
Her new collection, Blaris Moor, takes as its title and starting point a traditional popular ballad that commemorates the trial, conviction and execution of four militiamen in 1797. Larger conflicts shadow these poems, including World Wars I and II. Meditations on the Flight of the Earls in the early 1600s move to thoughts of the Somme and Flanders.