In her essay ëHistory Gaspsí (1995), the title of which is taken from
Berkeleyís poem ëEaster 1944í (1986), Gerardine Meaney touches on
the relation between anti-foundational modes of subjectivity and
alterity. She asks via Julia Kristeva how far womenís time and space
are different from the ëhistoricallyí defined proceedings of the Irish
literary tradition.^28 Meaney notices how the protagonist of Berkeleyís
poem ëThe Drowning Elementí (1989) is exiled from history and
language to a body that cannot speak itself. She explores the use of
water imagery in Irish womenís poetry arguing that Berkeley deals
with femininity in terms of an element that cannot easily be
territorialised.^29 Water, Meaney concludes, offers Berkeley an image
of writing that is both extra-territorial and at home, in her element.^30
Berkeleyís early poem ëOut in the Stormí (p.16) published in 1986,
begins her poetic obsession with water. This is developed in later
poems dealing with escape through water and flight including: ëA
Time of Droughtí,^31 ëMaker of Rainí (p.39), ëThe Figures in the
Rainí (p.52), ëMan in Ballooní (p.56), ëThe Drowningí (p.57) and
ëMan in Flightí (p.59). How far then does water offer an extra-
territorial unheimlich home for Berkeleyís nomadic subjects?
The collection Facts About Water is preoccupied with drowning,
both real and imaginary.^32 In ëAt the Railsí (p.79) the speaker dreams
of drowning while in ëThe Wakingí (p.80), she is ë[o]pened from a
dreamí and asks a question that haunts the collection as a whole: ëI am
surfacing but how should I speak?í In ëFacts About Waterí sexuality
28 Julia Kristeva, ‘Women’s Time’, The Kristeva Reader, ed., Toril Moi (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1986).
29 Berkeley, ‘The Drowning Element’, Home Movie Nights, p.51. Gerardine
Meaney, ‘History Gasps: Myth in Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry’, Poetry
in Contemporary Irish Literature, ed., Michael Kenneally, Studies in
Contemporary Irish Literary Studies 43 (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smyth, 1995),
p.112.
30 Meaney, ‘History Gasps’, p.113.
31 Berkeley, ‘A Time of Drought’, Home Movie Nights, p.45.
32 This is loosely evocative of Virginia Woolf’s work and although there are no
direct references to her texts in the poetry, it is noticeable that the protagonist in
Berkeley’s short story ‘The Swimmer’ from The Swimmer in the Deep Blue
Dream (Dublin: Raven, 1991), bears the name ‘Cam’ who is notably one of
Mrs. Ramsey’s children from To The Lighthouse (1927). How far this is
coincidental is difficult to assess.