Bloodaxe Books | Maura Dooley reads seven poems @BloodaxeBooks | Uploaded January 2019 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
Maura Dooley’s poetry is remarkable for embracing both lyricism and political consciousness, for its fusion of head and heart. These qualities have won her wide acclaim. Helen Dunmore (in Poetry Review) admired her ‘sharp and forceful’ intelligence. Adam Thorpe praised her ability ‘to enact and find images for complex feelings… Her poems have both great delicacy and an undeniable toughness …she manages to combine detailed domesticity with lyrical beauty, most perfectly in the metaphor of memory’ (Literary Review). Maura Dooley was born in Truro, grew up in Bristol, worked for some years in Yorkshire, and has lived in London for the past 25 years. She is a freelance writer and lectures at Goldsmiths’ College.
Her selection, Sound Barrier: Poems 1982-2002, was published by Bloodaxe in 2002, drawing on collections including Explaining Magnetism (1991) and Kissing a Bone (1996), both Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Kissing a Bone and her later collection Life Under Water, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation in 2008, were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poem 'Cleaning Jim Dine's Heart' was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2015, and is included in her latest collection, The Silvering, also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which was published by Bloodaxe in 2016.
Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed Maura Dooley in London on 8 October 2007. This film is from the DVD-anthology IN PERSON: 30 POETS, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce & edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). The poems, in the order of the film, are: ‘Up on the Roof’, ‘What Every Woman Should Carry’, ‘History’, ‘Dancing at Oakmead Road’ and ‘Freight’ from SOUND BARRIER: Poems 1982-2002 (Bloodaxe Books, 2002) and ‘The Elevator’ (about a chance encounter with Leonard Cohen) from LIFE UNDER WATER (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). For more details please see bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/maura-dooley
Maura Dooley’s poetry is remarkable for embracing both lyricism and political consciousness, for its fusion of head and heart. These qualities have won her wide acclaim. Helen Dunmore (in Poetry Review) admired her ‘sharp and forceful’ intelligence. Adam Thorpe praised her ability ‘to enact and find images for complex feelings… Her poems have both great delicacy and an undeniable toughness …she manages to combine detailed domesticity with lyrical beauty, most perfectly in the metaphor of memory’ (Literary Review). Maura Dooley was born in Truro, grew up in Bristol, worked for some years in Yorkshire, and has lived in London for the past 25 years. She is a freelance writer and lectures at Goldsmiths’ College.
Her selection, Sound Barrier: Poems 1982-2002, was published by Bloodaxe in 2002, drawing on collections including Explaining Magnetism (1991) and Kissing a Bone (1996), both Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Kissing a Bone and her later collection Life Under Water, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation in 2008, were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poem 'Cleaning Jim Dine's Heart' was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2015, and is included in her latest collection, The Silvering, also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which was published by Bloodaxe in 2016.
Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed Maura Dooley in London on 8 October 2007. This film is from the DVD-anthology IN PERSON: 30 POETS, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce & edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). The poems, in the order of the film, are: ‘Up on the Roof’, ‘What Every Woman Should Carry’, ‘History’, ‘Dancing at Oakmead Road’ and ‘Freight’ from SOUND BARRIER: Poems 1982-2002 (Bloodaxe Books, 2002) and ‘The Elevator’ (about a chance encounter with Leonard Cohen) from LIFE UNDER WATER (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). For more details please see bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/maura-dooley
