From the Irish glens to the Argentine pampas: the poetry of Elaine Gaston

Abstract

Elaine Gastons poetic work reveals a voice charged with the time and place of her time. Her literary production received the praise of poets such as Medbh McGuckian who expressed that Gaston “writes as truthfully and tenderly as Heaney about sorrow, love and the difficulties and joys of developing out from a narrow Ulster experience to embrace the whole world as home” (McGuckian, 2012). Anne-Marie Fyfe on her part refers to Gaston as someone who can “capture a life rooted in a particular rural landscape (...) who confronts equally the everyday complexities of north-of-Ireland life, the unrootedness of contemporary experience with its leavings and returnings, and the inelecuctable shifts of the heart, all in a language that is taut, direct and moving” (Fyfe, 2015). Linda France also highlights Gastons skill to go “back to the source, raid memory and unearth the tenderness of family, the ties of a shared language and intimacy with the land...” (France, 2010). It is my aim to let readers know her poetry which speaks of the local, people and events close to her emotions and “recollected in tranquility” with a deep global reach.