'Snared by Words': Trauma and the Shoah in the Poetry of Medbh McGuckian

Medbh McGuckian’s writing is characteristically appropriative: each poetic text is woven together using phrases and images plucked from myriad sources. This article examines how she uses unacknowledged quotations to mark and encircle narratives of trauma. Looking specifically at three poems which take the Shoah as their thematic focus, I explore how she avoids exploitative rhetoric and how she is aware of her lack of authority to speak about or on behalf of the victims.