Passed my PhD Viva

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"There are chapbooks, and there are chapbooks. And then there is Legion by Eleanor Hooker.

Letterset by hand, crafted in the old style, these 8 poems sing of honeybees and intone the "trembling water of the lake". Eleanor's work is evocative as always, teeming with the profusion of nature and its gifts and the people who interact with these, in good ways and bad. Echoes of Yeats's "bee-loud glade" come to mind, not just because of the theme but for the texture of the language too.

But Eleanor's words focus on the feminine, weaving images like spells cast over the page, words to harness the energy of the natural world that most of us don't understand but that lead the poet "to wheedle with words".

The honeybee with all its associations - productivity, sweet honey, its sting, the drone reproducing only to die - is a charming metaphor for the many dichotomies of life as well as the greed that abounds in society, where the bee-elect is "trapped in the syrup of its own success".

A beautiful artefact made by Hans van Eijk of Bonnefant Press, Maastricht, Holland, with frontispiece by Jeanie Tomanek."

Anamaría Crowe Serrano - poet and author

"There are chapbooks, and there are chapbooks. And then there is Legion by Eleanor Hooker.

A beautiful artefact made by Hans van Eijk of Bonnefant Press, Maastricht, Holland, with frontispiece by Jeanie Tomanek."

Anamaría Crowe Serrano - poet and author

Eleanor Hooker
5 days ago
1 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

29 October Passed my PhD viva at UL. When my nerves settled, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Graduation ceremony in January.

My grateful thanks to my wonderful supervisors Associate Professor Donal Ryan and Associate Professor Doctor Mariano Paz, both of whom also attended my viva.

My extern was Professor Carlo Gébler and internal examiner was Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, and chairing the viva was Professor Eoin Devereux - all incredibly, incredibly kind, and who put me so at my ease. Fantastic questions that demonstrated their thorough engagement with my thesis.

Huge thanks too to Dr Marie Gethins for her amazing advice and suggestions for my viva prep.

Happy out!

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