Enter

11 Eavan Boland Poems to Remember Her By

By
Elle Kammerer
Reading Time: 2 minutes

“Poetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one person’s life.”

On Monday, April 27th, 2020, the world lost an inspirational poet. Eavan Boland passed away from a stroke in her Dublin home. She was a powerhouse wordsmith who wrote with passion, insight, and feminity.

Boland was an admired Stanford professor, the winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and a pioneer for Irish poetry. Born in Dublin in 1944, she started writing poetry in the 1960s when Irish poetry was a male-dominated arena.

She wasn’t Yeats or Heaney, so her poetry wasn’t widely accepted as “traditional Irish poetry.” Still, she continued to write and put herself in what was always considered a man’s space.

“In my generation, women went from being the objects of the Irish poem to being the authors of the Irish poem, and that was very disruptive in a literature that probably wasn’t prepared for that.”

The South Bend Tribune of Indiana, 1997

Instead, she used her poetry to represent women how they are. She portrayed femininity with a personal touch. She helped move poetry in a new direction. Now, she will be remembered as one of Ireland’s greatest poets.

To honor her, little infinite has collected some of our favorite Eavan Boland poems. Let’s celebrate her work and her amazing contributions to the poetry community.

View this post on Instagram

Quarantine In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people a man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking—they were both walking—north. She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back. He walked like that west and west and north. Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived. In the morning they were both found dead. Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her. Let no love poem ever come to this threshold. There is no place here for the inexact praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body. There is only time for this merciless inventory: Their death together in the winter of 1847. Also what they suffered. How they lived. And what there is between a man and woman. And in which darkness it can best be proved. Credit From New Collected Poems by #EavanBoland #poetry #poem #quarantine

A post shared by Koshin Paley Ellison (@koshinpaleyellison) on

View this post on Instagram

I remember clearly how moved I was, the first time I read this poem by Eavan Boland. We read it in a seminar on Postcolonial women's poetry, the only seminar offered that looked at postcolonial poetry when I studied. I thought the poem was beautiful and dense and the fact that it didn't immediately make sense to me made me nervous, but in a good way. I decided to write my final thesis about Irish poetry and really enjoyed the reading I did for that. It had a huge impact on my decision to pursue a PhD focused on Postcolonial poetry. It had a huge impact on how I read poetry and how I teach poetry. It taught me that I can appreciate beauty before understanding a poem. I'm sharing this poem with you today so that you can maybe appreciate its beauty too. And so you know how wonderful Eavan Boland was. #eavanboland #eavanbolandpoetry #adreaminthreecolours #poetry #poetryporn #poetrylover #booklover #booksofig #bookish #books #reading #irishpoetry #phdlife

A post shared by Lioba (@lio_pio) on

View this post on Instagram

A friend and colleague sent me this photo this morning in remembrance of the late Eavan Boland who sadly passed away, and of course it got me to thinking….. Eavan loved and saw the beauty in the most ordinary of things, the simplest of views or items, the smallest of moments. I think that in these last few weeks we too have begun to remember, or perhaps recognise for the first time, the beauty in the simplest of things and the magic in the smallest of moments, and always we come back to hope, we are a hopeful people which allows us to overcome our challenges, you need only read the poem below and then look around your own home at all the signs of hope that you left behind last night. It’s thoughtful Tuesday! Have a lovely, hopeful day 🥰 #humanneskillaloe #eavanboland #staysafestayhome #thoughtfultuesday

A post shared by Humans of St. Anne’s CC (@humans_of_st.annes) on

If you want even more poetry by Boland, be sure to pick up a few of her collections. A Woman Without A Country is one of our favorites. This collection discusses how we can all leave a legacy of love in the world no matter where we call home.

Bonus: Here is a bit of writing advice from Eavan Boland that we can all relate to.

“If you can’t do a poem, you can do a line. And if you can’t do a line, you can do an image — and that pathway that leads you along, in fragments, becomes astonishingly valuable.”

Stanford Magazine, 2002

To stay up-to-date, make sure to keep an eye out for more of little infinite’s featured content as we celebrate poetry, books, and this beautiful hot mess we call life on Instagram and Twitter. 

Enter

You May Also LikeMore From Author