about

Carolann Caviglia Madden is a poet, archivist, folklorist, weaver, abolition lover and Postdoctoral Researcher at Maynooth University on the IRC funded project, Women in Focus: Developing a Feminist Approach to Film Archive Metadata and Cataloguing. She holds a PhD in Poetry and Folklore/Ethnography, with a Certificate in Translation Studies and two Graduate Assistantships in Archives, from the University of Houston. She also holds an MA in Irish Studies from Boston College, an MFA from San Diego State University, a Certification in Archives from the AASLH, and has been educated at the University of Galway, UC Santa Cruz and Queen’s University, Belfast. Her research revolves around folklore, poetry, material culture, expressive culture, archival absences and practices, and the intersections between them. She has published and presented in particular on Irish folklore and poetry, women in and of folklore, archives and material culture, and the folklore and material culture of maritime and coastal communities. Her book, Ritual Loss (forthcoming, Omnidawn, 2026), was chosen by Desirée Alvarez for Omnidawn’s 2024 1st/2nd Poetry Book Prize. A recent winner of the Inprint Verlaine Prize for Poetry judged by Gabrielle Calvocoressi, she is also the granddaughter of immigrants, a traditional handweaver trained at the Marshfield School of Weaving and the recent recipient of a Fulbright Ireland Research Grant. You can find a growing exhibit of her archival research, entitled ThiarWest, on www.thiarwest.com. She lives in Galway, Ireland.

“Madden’s verse rings with a mystic’s passion and creates its own lexicon of spell casting. “begin / ready heart, begin”. These poems are not afraid to split the lark and explore its bloody chamber.”
—Desirée Alvarez

“Carolann Caviglia Madden knows how to make art from repetition, which is what it means to work and why work, and why workers, are the beginning of everything.”
—Christopher Watkins