mundyewalsh Lynn Caldwell’s work has been published in Poetry Ireland Review; anthologies Writing Home, The Book of Life (both Dedalus Press) and Washing Windows 3, 4 and 5 from Arlen House; The Stony Thursday Book; Cyphers; Antigonish Review; Crosswinds Poetry Journal; The Irish Times; and Aesthetica’s Creative Writing Anthology; and has featured on Sunday Miscellany. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Agility Award. Now a Dubliner, Lynn is a Canadian calling Ireland her second home: walks in the Phoenix Park or hikes on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people help keep her body, soul and spirit knit together.
Lynn collaborated in the Summer 2026 edition of Poetry in Motion with the poem Greengages fall, which celebrates the ripe lushness of summer.
Poetry in Motion is a project born from the idea of celebrating the words of a poet, alongside the handwritten words of the sender, to explore what connections such a combination could spark. Find out about this and all things handwritten on A C H A R A.
Have you always wanted to be a writer and poet?
Before I started school, there was one day I followed my older sister around the house, getting her to tell me how to spell the words of the story I wanted to write in my scrapbook: “once apon [sic] a time” is as far as I got before she went off to do other things.
After completing a degree in creative writing, I did freelance nonfiction and then wrote a novel (which was never published). Throughout that time, I also worked as an administrator for a performing arts group in Europe and then the Dublin Film Festival, so I was surrounded by creative people which encouraged me on my own path.
However, after the novel, I couldn’t bring myself to write again so immersed myself in my family and different creative pursuits. One day, about ten years later, I thought, “I can do this”. I went through some old notebooks and found a partially written poem that I re-worked and sent out. “In Your Own Dreamtime” has since been published four times and celebrates my daughter crossing the Pacific twice and the Atlantic four times before she was born, and how I can “see the open road in her eyes”.
I’m also still working as an administrator, currently for a small charity and I am blessed by their interest in and support of my poetry.
Who or what inspires you?
My family often make their way into my poems, whether they like it or not: my kids, my husband, parents, sisters, grandmothers, and others all walk around in my work.
Visiting art galleries is a great way for me to get ideas going, and many poems have come from thoughts that have been sparked while I’m listening to a good Irish trad session (I’m married to an Uilleann piper, so I’m never far from music).
What is your process from ideation to creation?
I’d be lost without my notebooks. Ideas and pictures flit through my brain and if I don’t immediately get them down, they are gone forever. I do make notes on my phone, but there’s something warm and tangible about pen on paper that works for me.
When I’m trying to start a poem, I read through these jottings; often different bits from different days come together in surprising ways.
After a draft or two, I bring the new piece to my poetry group, the Circle. We meet every two weeks and workshop each other’s poems, so I get feedback which is incredibly valuable, and I stretch my own poetry muscles giving feedback on other work. The regular deadlines, helpful input, solidarity, and wonderful camaraderie have made a huge difference to my body of work.
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