Gendered Spaces in Contemporary Irish Poetry

At the Frontiers of Place-Logic

McGuckianís allusive poetic territory and refusal to ground the poem
within an easily definable interpretative place can be developed in
relation to the theorization of space. A less foundational situation
where there is no firm territory on which to locate a poetic voice hints
at problems with representative space that has implications for
feminist and post-colonial theorization of identity politics. Reasserting
the importance of space in cultural theory, Edward Soja explains how
space is fundamental in any communal life and in any exercise of
power. He argues that a ëwhole history remains to be written of spaces
ñ which would at the same time be the history of powers.í^18 According
to Soja, an unsettled and unsettling geography is part of the post-
modern condition.^19 However, as McGuckianís poem ëSmokeí sug-
gests, unsettled geography is part of Irish experience for people in the
North of Ireland whose geography is under debate and where the
territory is home to contesting identities. Sojaís conclusion is poignant
when he argues that a ëcritical human geography must be attuned to
the emancipatory struggles of those who are peripheralized and
oppressed by the specific geography of capitalismí and here we could
add colonialism.^20
ëSmokeí is the opening poem of McGuckianís first collection,
The Flower Master, and it alludes to both territorial and subliminal
borders:

They set the whins on fire along the road.

I wonder what controls it, can the wind hold

That snake of orange motion to the hills,

Away from the houses?

They seem so sure what they can do.

I am unable even

18 Edward Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Cultural
Theory (London: Verso, 1989), p.19, p.21. Cf. Henri Lefebvre, The Production
of Space, trans., Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 6th edn., 1995).
19 Ibid., p.60.
20 Ibid., p.74.