Julie Morrissy

Julie Morrissy Julie Morrissy and Kelly Sullivan julie morrissy, with degrees in creative writing, law, and literature, was the first Poet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland. Her project Radical! Women and the Irish Revolution comprises a poetry pamphlet and a podcast series. She has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newman Fellowship, the Arts Council of Ireland “Next Generation” Award, and the MAKE Theatre Award. Her first collection, Where, the Mile End, was published by Book*hug Press (Canada) and tall-lighthouse (United Kingdom). She will deliver the 2023 Hibernian Lecture at the University of Notre Dame. ________ Julie Morrissy and Kelly Sullivan spoke via Zoom on 23 January 2023 and again in September. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. kelly sullivan: Since you grew up in Ireland, I imagine you knew about Seamus Heaney as a poet early on, but do you remember when you first encountered his poetry? julie morrissy:: I do remember because he was on my Leaving Certificate course and probably also on my Junior Certificate course for students in their early teens. That would have been the first time that I consciously encountered his work and spent time studying it. But he was in the orbit here as well. I was aware of Heaney before I was teenager—especially because my grandparents had lived in the North and loved poetry. I think for Junior Cert “Mid-Term Break” was on the course, and for Leaving Certificate I remember “Twice Shy” and “Badger.” [End Page 189] sullivan:: You mentioned that your grandparents were from the North. Did you think of Heaney as a poet from the North at that time? morrissy:: Yes, since that was the way my teachers framed him on the Leaving Certificate course. The poets that my teacher selected for us—which may be different for someone else of my generation —were Heaney, Michael Longley, and Eavan Boland. Longley and Heaney were taught in conversation with each other, and themes about Northern Ireland were emphasized in their work and in relation to each other’s work—whereas Boland was taught separately. sullivan:: Although Heaney’s early work seems so connected to his northern Irish identity, his language and sound moves into something more like an international style. I was thinking about that change in Heaney in relation to your poetry and particularly your first book, Where, the Mile End, which is very international—geographically but also stylistically. morrissy: Much of the internationalism and mobility in my poetry probably comes from my experience of living in other places. When I was younger, I was very North American focused with literature. The only time I intently studied Irish poetry was for the Leaving Certificate. I went from that to earning a North American literature M.A. and then a doctorate in creative writing which was not specifically concentrated on Irish Studies—although Irish literature of course informed the work. The Leaving Certificate included mainly early and some mid-career Heaney, so I don’t know if the internationalism of my own writing related to his poetry. But in Ireland, poetry is much more embedded in our daily lives than what I have experienced in other places. Poetry is used as ceremony —where it will be recited for public or commemorative events—but it also enters daily life. There are poems posted on the DART and recently poems on bins—on trashcans [laughter]. Quite weird! We are so surrounded by poetry, it’s very possible that later poems by Heaney would have been in my consciousness without my being directly able to reach for a reference. sullivan: Do you think that Heaney has a particularly outsized presence within that kind of public or day-to-day poetry world in Ireland? [End Page 190] morrissy:: I don’t think so. Especially with more daily visibility—as with the public poems on the DART—attention tends to concentrate on early career and younger poets. We definitely hear a lot of Heaney and Yeats at ceremonial events—as with President Biden’s recent visit to Ireland. But I don’t think Heaney’s presence is outsized since the weight...