'Where a poet stands in a poem isn't just arbitrary. I was troubled by the idea of a readymade authority in the Irish poem: who had it, and who didn't. So I wanted to make my own authority...was trying to find my own space. That was what mattered most of all.'

                                                Eavan Boland, 2006

The Eavan Boland Sourcebook is an essential companion to the poetry, prose and critical writing of this acclaimed poet. Jody Allen Randolph has been a teacher and interpreter of Boland's work for many years and gathers here a rich collection of literary and critical texts, illuminating the poet's achievements for students and general readers alike. The Sourcebook includes:

• a biographical introduction and chronology
• introductory surveys of each aspect of Boland's work
• a representative selection of Boland's poetry and prose writings
• interviews from 1987 to 2006
• reviews and critical discussions of each of Boland's books
• photographs
• a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources

Contents

 

Acknowledgements         xi

Preface     xiii

Chronology xix

 

Part I   Poetry

Editor’s Note 2

fromNew Territory (1967)

    Athene’s Song            6

    From the Painting Back from Market by Chardin   7

from The War Horse (1975)

    The War Horse          7

    Child of Our Time            9

from In Her Own Image (1980)

    Anorexic  9

from Night Feed (1982)

    Domestic Interior       11

    Degas’s Laundresses    12

    Night Feed    14

from The Journey (1986)

    Mise Eire 15

    The Emigrant Irish    16

    The Journey    17

from Outside History (1990)

    The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me             20

    Outside History       21

    What We Lost           22

from In a Time of Violence (1994)

    That the Science of Cartography is Limited      23

    Love       24

    ThePomegranate    25

    The Singers    27

    This Moment     27

    Anna Liffey    28

from The Lost Land (1998)

    Heroic    34

    The Blossom    34

from Code (2001)

    Thankëd be Fortune      35

    Is It Still the Same        36

    Quarantine    37

    Irish Poetry    37

from Domestic Violence (2007)

    Domestic Violence    38

    An Elegy for My Mother In Which She ScarcelyAppears     40

    Amber    41

 

Part II   Prose

Editor’s Note    44

from “Author’s Preface” ObjectLessons    47

from “Daughter” 51

from “In Search of a Nation”       55

from “In Search of a Language” 57

from “Turning Away”        61

from “Outside History”      67

from “Religion and Poetry” 74

from “The Irish Woman Poet: Her Place in Irish Literature”  76

from “Letter to a Young Woman Poet”    78

from “Subject Matters”     80

from “Domestic Violence”   82

“The Weasel’s Tooth”        87

“Holles Street”    91

About “This Moment”    93

“A Question”    94

 

Part III  Interviews

Editor’s Note    100

JodyAllen Randolph, “An Interview with Eavan Boland”    102

Deborah Tall, “Q & A withEavan Boland”    113

Marilyn Reizbaum, “An Interviewwith Eavan Boland”    115

Jan Garden Castro, “The Voice ofEavan Boland”    116

Elizabeth Schmidt, “Where PoetryBegins”    121

Margaret Mills Harper, “EavanBoland: An Interview” 123

Vicki Bertram, “DefiningCircumstances” 125

Alice Quinn, “The Stoicisms ofLove”       127

Caffeine Destiny Interview  129

Smartish Pace Poets Q & A          132

Pilar Villar, “The Text of It”    137

Jody Allen Randolph, “A BackwardLook”       141

 

Part IV  Reviews and Criticism

Editor’sNote    146

AlbertGelpi, from “‘Hazard and Death’: ThePoetry of
Eavan Boland” 148

MaryO’Malley, “Poetry, Womanhood, and ‘I amn’t’” 156

SharaMcCallum, “Eavan Boland’s Gift: Sex, History,
and Myth”            160

Mary O’Donnell, from“In Her OwnImage: An Assertion
that Myths Are Made by Men, by the Poet in Transition”            167

TerenceBrown, from “Heart Mysteries There: The War Horse”            168

R.T.Smith, from “Altered Light: Outside History” 173

MichaelThurston, from “‘A DeliberateCollection of Cross Purposes’: Eavan Boland’s Poetic Sequences”            176

HelenLojek, from “Man, Woman, Soldier:Heaney’s ‘In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge’ and Boland’s ‘Heroic’” 178

AnneFogarty, Review of New Collected Poems    184

 

SelectedBibliography    187

Index of Titles and First Lines    249

Subject Index    251