Synopsis
A new collection of poems about marriage by one of our most celebrated poets.
Library Journal
For over 20 years, Eavan Boland (b. 1944 in Dublin) has been interweaving themes of the importance of poetry, Irish history, and women's identity. This volume (her ninth book of poetry), which dramatizes conflicts between marriage and freedom ("what is hidden in/ this ordinary, aging human love") could be subtitled "contradictions of a daily love." "Against" overdone "love poetry" ("Let no love poem ever come to this threshold") because it falsifies "the edge of language," she instead seeks "exact patience" and rapport between self and place, man and wife "mated for life." Overcoming her uncertainties, Boland finds relief in a "merciless inventory" that utilizes imagination to transcend computer and moral "codes" ("the code marriage makes of passion"), necessary, fixed things subject to "duty, dailyness, routine." The Yeatsian landscape of her poetry ("salmon-rich/ rivers and birdlife/ and lilac of this island") is the troubled starting point for her search for identity. But to read these poems only as a tour of the Irish countryside is to acquiesce to the "terrible regard" of those who romanticize its "savage acres." Finally, Boland's self-recognition is an expression of an honest spirit that finds strength in "what wears, what endures." For contemporary collections. Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.