The Bone Folder by Cáit O’Neill McCullagh
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh’s first full volume of poetry announces an unmistakable and distinctive talent. Her poetry is, in parts, shaped by the languages and traditions of her Highland and Irish upbringings, and by her work as an archaeologist and ethnologist throughout the Highlands and Islands. Cáit’s debut pamphlet, ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ – a collaboration with Sinéad McClure – won Dreich’s Classic Chapbook 2022 and a Saboteur Award in 2023.
“This body is not a poem’, Cáìt O’Neill McCullagh tells us in The Bone Folder. Yet, like Sharon Olds, she unflinchingly interrogates the physical body’s power and failure, its intimate grace alongside its weakness. You will want to read these lyrical poems over and over again, because, as Càít rightly tells us in her own exquisite way, ‘we are each other’s song.” – Marjorie Lotfi
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh’s first full volume of poetry announces an unmistakable and distinctive talent. Her poetry is, in parts, shaped by the languages and traditions of her Highland and Irish upbringings, and by her work as an archaeologist and ethnologist throughout the Highlands and Islands. Cáit’s debut pamphlet, ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ – a collaboration with Sinéad McClure – won Dreich’s Classic Chapbook 2022 and a Saboteur Award in 2023.
“This body is not a poem’, Cáìt O’Neill McCullagh tells us in The Bone Folder. Yet, like Sharon Olds, she unflinchingly interrogates the physical body’s power and failure, its intimate grace alongside its weakness. You will want to read these lyrical poems over and over again, because, as Càít rightly tells us in her own exquisite way, ‘we are each other’s song.” – Marjorie Lotfi
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh’s first full volume of poetry announces an unmistakable and distinctive talent. Her poetry is, in parts, shaped by the languages and traditions of her Highland and Irish upbringings, and by her work as an archaeologist and ethnologist throughout the Highlands and Islands. Cáit’s debut pamphlet, ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ – a collaboration with Sinéad McClure – won Dreich’s Classic Chapbook 2022 and a Saboteur Award in 2023.
“This body is not a poem’, Cáìt O’Neill McCullagh tells us in The Bone Folder. Yet, like Sharon Olds, she unflinchingly interrogates the physical body’s power and failure, its intimate grace alongside its weakness. You will want to read these lyrical poems over and over again, because, as Càít rightly tells us in her own exquisite way, ‘we are each other’s song.” – Marjorie Lotfi