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About The Bone Folder
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh’s first full volume of poetry announces an unmistakable and distinctive talent. Her poetry is, in parts, shaped by the languages and traditions of her Highland and Irish upbringings, and by more than twenty years of living and working as an archaeologist and ethnologist throughout the Highlands and Islands. This debut full-length collection has been commended
“History and belonging, illness and joy, war and love are woven together in this haunting collection. McCullagh is a bold and visionary writer who crafts the heartwood of language into luminous work that sings with life.” – John Glenday
“Like the doctors who ‘cannot simply repair,’ we too witness healing of a different sort, the kind that stitches both a body back together, and then all of us together. You will want to read these lyrical poems over and over again because, as Càít rightly tells us in her own exquisite way, “we are each other’s song.” – Marjorie Lotfi
“From the opening poem Charm of the Bones ‘Come, listen,/our whispers ask for homecoming,’ you engage with a lyric poet. Cáit is a poet alive to her moment.” – George Gunn
“This collection throbs with richness and resonance, it is a veritable raft of poems – some of which shoot like arrows off the page, whilst others bud then flower.” – Michael Pederson
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh began writing poetry, at home in Easter Ross, in December 2020. Her poems are widely published in journals and periodicals, including Ink, Sweat & Tears, New Writing Scotland, Northwords Now, Poetry Scotland and The Long Poem Magazine.
The songs I sing are sisters, her 2023 Saboteur Award-winning debut pamphlet – a collaboration with Irish poet Sinéad McClure - won the Dreich Classic Chapbook Competition in 2022. Cáit’s debut collection The Bone Folder was published by Drunk Muse Press on 24 July 2024. Copies are available from Drunk Muse Press, and from the author. For more information and to read commendations for this work, please scroll down.
Her work has also been commissioned for numerous anthologies, and has featured in films and exhibitions, including in collaborations with artists Helen Denerly, and Rachel Ho.
A joint winner of the Boyne Berries Poetry Day Ireland Instapoem competition 2021, in 2022 Cáit had two poems longlisted for Galway’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature ‘Poems for Patience’ competition. She was also longlisted for the Bridport Poetry Competition 2023.
A featured reader at gatherings hosted across Britian and Ireland, Cáit has been invited as a guest reader at International events too, including by the Universities of Helsinki and the Highlands and Islands, and UNESCO RILA at the University of Glasgow. She has also performed at festivals including Belladrum and The Wee Gaitherin.
A Co-Director of The Wee Gaitherin, dedicated to promoting contemporary poetry in Scotland through an annual festival in Stonehaven, and a Trustee of Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre, Cáit is committed to nurturing the development of fellow writers and to supporting access to the written and spoken word for all.
At present, Cáit is outrunning a recurrence of cancer, first diagnosed in 2022, while continuing to facilitate and tutor creative writing workshops as much as she is able, and working on her next collection.
See https://linktr.ee/caitjomac to access links to Cáit’s social media, a selection of her writing and recordings of her reading online, and to find out about upcoming readings, workshops and projects.
Featured Poem:
‘Little Stabs’ – First published in The Bone Folder (2022) and at Raising the Fifth. Read the poem and the story of its making here: https://raisingthefifth.co.uk/little-stabs-cait-oneill-mccullagh/