Máighréad Medbh has five published poetry collections and an audio CD. Born in Co. Limerick, she was a pioneer of performance poetry in Ireland in the 1990s, and continues to impress live audiences with her unique style. Her poetic philosophy is grounded in the integration of mind and body, and she seeks to reflect this in formal structure. The resulting poems range from obviously controlled, carefully planned metres to experimental, random forms in which grammar, punctuation and syntax are often subject to the dictates of mood, sense and music. The form, in turn, directs the vocal delivery, and it’s common for Máighréad to sing lines or to chant entire poems. Her most recent collection, Twelve beds for the dreamer (Dublin: Arlen House, 2010), reflects her penchant for themed sequences and uses the zodiac as a symbolic framework. In recent years she has written the first book in a planned four-volume story for young readers, a fantasy-fable which is also of large scope, and a book of dialogues and pensées on the subject of solitude. The latter will be published by Dedalus Press in February 2013. A new edition of her controversial first collection, The making of a pagan, incorporating 17 new poems, is planned for late 2012 by Arlen House press.

Máighréad’s website is at: www.maighreadmedbh.ie