Cannon, Moya 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born 1956, in Dunfanaghy, Ireland; daughter of Eamonn and Máirín Cannon. Ethnicity: "Irish." Education: National University of Ireland, University College, Dublin, B.A. (with honors), 1976; Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, M.Phil., 1983.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Galway, Ireland.

CAREER:

Teacher and writer.

MEMBER:

Asodána.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from Irish Arts Council and Canada Council, 1994; Brendan Behan Memorial Prize, for Oar; Lawrence O Shaughnessy Award, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN, 2000.

WRITINGS:

Oar (poetry), Salmon (Bridge Mills, Ireland), 1990, revised edition, Gallery Books (Loughcrew, Ireland), 2000.

(Editor) Cúm: An Anthology of New Writing from County Kerry, Kerry County Council (Tralee, Ireland), 1996.

The Parchment Boat (poetry), Gallery Press (Loughcrew, Ireland), 1997.

Winter Birds (poetry), limited edition, Traffic Street Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Work represented in anthologies, including The White Page, edited by Joan McBreen, Salmon Press, 1999; The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry 1967-2000, edited by Peggy O'Brien, Wake Forest Press, 2000; Slow Time, edited by Niall McMonagle, Marino Books (Dublin, Ireland), 2000; Something Beginning with P: New Irish Poetry for Young Readers, edited by Seamus Cashman, O Brien Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2005; and My Self, My Muse: Irish Women Poets Reflect on Life and Art, edited by Patricia Boyle Haberstroh, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY). Editor of Poetry Ireland, 1995.

ADAPTATIONS:

Cannon's poetry has been set to music by composers Jane O'Leary, Philip Martin, and Ella Cranitch.

SIDELIGHTS:

Moya Cannon is an Irish poet whose verses, according to Irish Literary Supplement reviewer Peter Denman, manage to "probe delicately at the overlap between great themes and individual experiences." Cannon won the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize for her debut collection, Oar. Among the poems in this volume are "Scar," wherein a shaving nick suffered by a loved one is related to a wound incurred by the Greek warrior Odysseus, and "Turf Boats," a rhythmic work about time and life and the sea.

In her next poetry collection, The Parchment Boat, Cannon demonstrates what a Kirkus Reviews critic described as "an archaeologist's eye for the telling object." Poems in The Parchment Boat include "Night," wherein the narrator considers the stars; "Easter Houses," in which children construct a shell and break out of it; and "Introductions," which reflects on the oddities of love. Irish Literary Supplement reviewer Moynagh Sullivan observed "a sense of resignation about these poems, but a thankful rather than a despairing one." Sullivan praised The Parchment Boat as "accomplished and understated."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Irish Literary Supplement, fall, 1995, Peter Denman, "Recent Verse," p. 9; spring, 1999, Moynagh Sullivan, "Three from Gallery Press," pp. 21-22.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1998, review of The Parchment Boat, p. 299.

New Hibernia Review, spring, 2005, Christina Cusick, "Our Language Was Tidal."