Guarding the Flame

Taking its title from the myth surrounding St Bridgid''s flame in Kildare, Guarding the Flame explores women''s voices from Irish history and myth, from the every day woman in the market who imagines herself transformed if only briefly, to the voice of the river goddess Sionna, to Joyce''s Nora Barnacle. The collection contains poems of nature, of myth, of travel in Europe, Nepal and Africa. There are poems examining belonging / unbelonging, metamorphosis, inconstancy, and the country where Majella Cullinane currently resides, New Zealand.Majella Cullinane was born and raised in Limerick. She became a New Zealand resident in 2008, and currently resides in Wellington where she tutors in creative writing part-time. She has previously received a Sean Dunne Young Writer''s Award for Poetry, the Hennessy XO/Sunday Tribune Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and also an Irish Arts Council Award to study for an MLitt in Creative Writing at St. Andrew''s University. Her poems and short stories have been published in Ireland, the UK and New Zealand. Guarding the Flame is her debut collection.