about

Carolann Caviglia Madden is a poet, archivist, folklorist, 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 in Poetry from San Diego State University, a Certificate 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 research in particular on Irish folklore and poetry, women in and of folklore, archives and material culture, and maritime folklore. Her book, Ritual Loss (forthcoming, Omnidawn, 2026), was chosen by Desirée Alvarez for Omnidawn’s 2024 1st/2nd Poetry Book Prize, and her creative work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Stinging Fly, Bennington Review, World Literature Today, Interim, The Southwest Anthology: The Best from the Writing Programs (Texas Review Press), and elsewhere. A recent winner of the Inprint Verlaine Prize for Poetry judged by Gabrielle Calvocoressi, she is also the granddaughter of immigrants, and the recent recipient of a Research Fulbright to NUI Galway. 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