Margaret McCarthy describes “In the Becoming” as a “full circle moment.”
The volume subtitled “Poems on the Deirdre Story” can find its roots in her time as an undergraduate at the School of Visual Arts. The required literature courses led her to begin reading on Irish-themed subjects – “early Irish nature poetry, bardic poetry, Celtic myth.”
McCarthy said, “That in turn led me to Ireland to photograph; could I photograph the sites named in those myths and legends? Once there, it was all about the landscape for me; my career as a landscape photographer began.”
Now she has returned to the story of Deirdre, “one of the oldest, and possibly strangest, in Irish folklore; it forms the basis of a whole genre of Celtic literature: the elopement tale.
“‘Tristan and Isolde,’ perhaps the best-known elopement tale, comes down to us from a later era as a medieval, courtly romance,” said McCarthy, who grew up the eldest of six in a working-class family in Harrison, N.Y. “In Deirdre, we are much closer to the bare bones of this genre: female power as a driving, creative force bestowing transcendent love and knowledge, sometimes through frightening change.
“With deep respect for the various translations I read, my intent with these poems was to give Deirdre voice to tell her story, with imagery depicting the story through her eyes,” McCarthy added. “The poems made in her own voice became a meditation on a creative woman’s coming to language; how she literally ‘finds her voice’ from the core of her own individuality. Her voice insists on poetry as a kind of magic language, an agent of change, the true language of the spirit.
“Deirdre is a kind of spiritual warrior. Unable to live by anything other than her own instinct, incapable of compromising her autonomy, she defies a prophecy made at her birth,” the poet said. “As she takes charge of her own destiny, her story becomes a tale of escape into the natural world and the physical and spiritual journey she undergoes. She is an initiator; thus, she seems always ‘in the becoming,’ continually in the process of change, of transformation.”
“Many have retold the tale of the doomed young lovers—Yeats, Synge, James Stephens, Morgan Llywelyn, come to mind,” Richard Peabody, the editor of Gargoyle Magazine, has said of McCarthy’s latest book, “yet beyond this lush wordscape of dreams and forests, of city and country, there is a steadfast feminist edge undercutting.”
Jamie Cat Callan, creator of the Writers Toolbox, has written. “I am not the same person I was when I began my journey reading ‘In the Becoming.’ In fact, I forgot where I came from—and then I remembered. Margaret McCarthy’s exquisite imagery and sense of history took me to dark and brutal places and then gently ushered me back into the present, feeling dazzled, my eyes opened. I am glad to be alive, glad to share a world with McCarthy’s poetry.
Margaret McCarthy
Date of birth: July 11
Place of birth: White Plains, N.Y.
Spouse: Seymour (Sy) Klausner; we met when Sy came into the Harrison Cinema, where I was working the candy counter.
Residence: New York, N.Y.
Published works: “In The Becoming: Poems On The Deirdre Story” (Broadstone Books, 2024); “Notebooks From Mystery School” (Finishing Line Press, 2016); Anthologies: “The Pagan Muse: Poems Of Ritual And Inspiraton ( Kensington Publishing; 2003) “Working Papers in Irish Studies” (Nova Southeastern University). Numerous literary magazines and journals.
What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?
I try to transcribe the lipstick smeared cocktail napkins and other snippets of paper that I grab and scribble on whenever I get an idea; I gather up those scraps and try to turn them into poems whenever I can find more than two minutes to put together. But the important thing is to write down the idea or the line as it comes into your head. Poems are like dreams – they evaporate the minute the alarm goes off or the phone rings. Then sit down with all those scribbled beginnings, see what they have to tell you. Have patience as they reveal themselves to you and you make them into poems.
I was fortunate to have been awarded several artist residencies during which I worked on "In the Becoming"; during those residencies, all its pieces became a finished manuscript. I’m forever grateful to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Ragdale Foundation and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences. They are acknowledged in the book.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
As creatives, trust your own process. Even when it’s all taking too long and you don’t know where it’s leading. During the process of sending these poems out many times, they became shaped into what they are now. There was a bigger process going on than I realized.
Stand by your work. Our job is to make the best work we can; and then our job is to send it out into the world the best way we can. But in the big picture, we don’t control the timing of the universe. And sometimes that timing turns out for the better.
Finally, relationships are everything. Work honestly and respectfully with people you admire and respect. Build mutually supportive relationships. Create Community and support others on their path – you’ll need the support of like-minded others. Irish American Writers and Artists and the women of Nollaig Na mBan are gratefully acknowledged in my book. As writers, we need our alone time, our solitude; we may not be “joiners.” Yet, in the end, giving back, paying it forward in the ways that we’re able to really does work.
Name three books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure.
“The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore” by Sir James Frazier; “Women of the Celts” by Jean Markale; “The Tain,” translated by Thomas Kinsella; “Drawing Down the Moon” by Margot Adler. At different points in my life, each of these books expanded my understanding of myth and religion.
What book(s) are you currently reading?
Poetry by my fellow Broadstone poets and authors; they offer an incredibly diverse range of subjects and voice. Right now, I’m reading “Yet Some Other Spring –Poetry of Su Dongpo,” translated by Gary Stephens with Ning Wang. Su Dongpo was a poet writing in 11th-century China. Yet when he writes about his own life and times, especially his deep bond with his brother, his voice is so real, so direct, you feel those poems could have been written yesterday.
Is there a book you wish you had written?
Whenever I read a poem I love, or a brilliant line in a poem stops me in my tracks– I wish I had written it; or rather, I marvel at it. And I try to learn from it.
I’m not a fiction writer, but Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” has always stayed with me; it’s shocking and subversive. The epic nature of “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann has stayed with me, and Mann’s essay on the making of that book and his comments on the mystery of The Grail are fascinating.
Name a book that you were pleasantly surprised by.
“Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust. Yes, its thousands + page count is daunting; but his sensory memory is so dense, it totally envelops you.
If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?
This question is the hardest for me to answer – it depends on where I am in my life and what I’m working on. During the pandemic, I often thought about Marcel Proust, who was said to write only at night, in a cork-lined room; I would ask him about the solitude the writer needs, how it can be a blessing or a curse. When I ramble around the city and people watch, I often wonder how Will Shakespeare would see the panorama, our own current circus, the fun of sitting down with him, just to shoot the breeze or share the craic.
But right now, my choice would definitely be the Bard Amergin. Every time I read the “Invocation” or “The Mystery,” I’m knocked out by how the pure power of language, as an incantation, summons the Divine.
Imagine asking Amergin for his/her/their/ pronouns and getting the answer: “I am the hawk above the cliff / I am the point of a spear in battle / I am a tear from the sun”. Really, I believe Amergin’s pronouns as a shapeshifter are Everyone /Everything. Wow!
What book changed your life?
Again, so many. All the books I’ve previously mentioned here impacted me in big ways.
But let’s start with “Fun With Dick and Jane”, my 1st grade reader. I have a distinct memory of being 6 years old, sitting in class and suddenly “cracking the code,” knowing suddenly what the words meant, understanding that the words were adding up to something. Words add up to something.
What is your favorite spot in Ireland?
As I photographed Ireland’s landscape, I’d marvel how each spot would transform itself within minutes, as the light and weather changed. Each spot had so many moods. How can I pick just one spot?
I’ll be self-indulgent here, and quote from Deirdre’s “Lament” from “In the Becoming”
I have seen
I have seen blue
I have seen green
so pure and abundant
that to be among them
is to forget the word lack….
I have seen
and possessed the most tender of landscapes,
each view unfolding itself before my eyes
as I walked; I see each one now,
gentle as friends.
There is not one I can do without.
You're Irish if...
You’re still moved to tears whenever you hear the great tenor John McCormack sing “Macushla” – and you believe “Death is a dream and love is forever.”
For more about Margaret McCarthy’s work, visit margaretmccarthy.com.
