Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland
Boland, 1996
Born	Eavan Aisling Boland (1944-09-24)24 September 1944 Dublin,Ireland
Died	27 April 2020(2020-04-27)(aged 75) Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Poet, author, professor
Language	English
Alma mater	Trinity College Dublin
Period	1962–2020
Notable awards	Jacob's Award 1976
Spouse	Kevin Casey ​ (m.1969)​
Children	2
Relatives	Frederick Boland(father) Frances Kelly(mother)

Eavan Aisling Boland(/iːˈvænˈæʃlɪŋˈboʊlənd/,ee-VAN;24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor atStanford University,where she had taught from 1996.Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of women in Irish history.A number of poems from Boland's poetry career are studied by Irish students who take theLeaving Certificate.She was a recipient of theLannan Literary Award for Poetry.

Early life and education

Boland's father,Frederick Boland,was a career diplomat and her mother,Frances Kelly,was a noted painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944.

When she was six, Boland's father was appointedIrish Ambassador to the United Kingdom;the family followed him to London, where Boland had her first experiences ofanti-Irish sentiment.Her dealing with this hostility strengthened Boland's identification with her Irish heritage. She spoke of this time in her poem, "An Irish Childhood in England: 1951".

At 14, she returned to Dublin to attendHoly Child Schoolin Killiney.She published a pamphlet of poetry (23 Poems) in her first year at Trinity, in 1962. Boland earned a BA with First Class Honors in English Literature and Language fromTrinity College Dublinin 1966.

Career

Teaching and Professorial roles

After graduating, Boland held numerous teaching positions and published poetry, prose criticism and essays. She taught at Trinity College Dublin,University College, Dublin,andBowdoin College,and was a member of theInternational Writing Programat theUniversity of Iowa.She was also writer in residence at Trinity College Dublin, and at theNational Maternity Hospital.

In 1969, Boland married the novelist Kevin Casey; they would have two daughters together. Her experiences as a wife and mother influenced her to write about the centrality of the ordinary, as well as providing a frame for more political and historical themes. According to her friendGabrielle Calvocoressi,she "loved gossip like fish love water".

In the late 197os and 1980s, Boland taught at the School of Irish Studies in Dublin. From 1996 she was a tenured Professor of English at Stanford University where she was the Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professor in the Humanities and Melvin and Bill Lane Professor for Director of the Creative Writing program. She divided her time betweenPalo Altoand her home in Dublin.

Poetry

Eavan Boland's first book of poetry wasNew Territorypublished in 1967 with Dublin publisher Allen Figgis. This was followed byThe War Horse(1975),In Her Own Image(1980) andNight Feed(1982), which established her reputation as a writer on the ordinary lives of women and on the difficulties faced by women poets in a male-dominated literary world.

Boland was writer in residence at theNational Maternity Hospital, Dublin,in 1994. During this time she composed 'Night Feed' and 'The Tree of Life', and her work remains on a plaque in the hospital garden.

Several of her volumes of poetry have been Poetry Book Society Choices in theUK,where she is primarily published byCarcanet Press.In theUnited Statesher publisher isW. W. Norton.

Her poem "Quarantine"was one of 10 poems shortlisted forRTÉ's selection of Ireland's favourite poems of the last 100 years in 2015.

Former Irish Taoiseach,Bertie Ahern,quoted from her poem "The Emigrant Irish"in his address to the joint houses of theUS Congressin May 2008.

On 15 March 2016,President Obamaquoted lines from her poem "On a Thirtieth Anniversary"(from"Against Love Poetry"2001) in his remarks at a reception in theWhite Houseto celebrateSt Patrick's Day.

In March 2018 RTE broadcast a documentary on her life as a poet called "Eavan Boland: Is it Still the Same?".In the same year, Boland was commissioned by the Government of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy to write the poem "Our future will become the past of other women" to be read at the UN and in Ireland during the centenary commemorations of women gaining the vote in Ireland in 1918.

Editing and translating

Boland co-editedThe Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms(withMark Strand;W. W. Norton & Co., 2000). She also published a volume of translations in 2004 calledAfter Every War(Princeton University Press). WithEdward Hirsch,she co-edited "The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology of the Sonnet"(W. W. Norton & Co., 2008).

Awards

In 1976, Boland won a Jacob's Award for her involvement inThe Arts Programmebroadcast onRTÉ Radio.Her other awards include a Lannan Foundation Award in Poetry and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award.

Her collectionIn a Time of Violence(1994) received a Lannan Award and was shortlisted for theT. S. Eliot Prize.

In 1997 she received an honorary degree from University College Dublin. She also received honorary degrees from Strathclyde University and Colby College in the US in 1997, and the College of the Holy Cross in 1999. She received one from Bowdoin College in 2004. In 2004 she also received an honorary degree from Trinity College Dublin.

Boland received the Bucknell Medal of Distinction 2000 from Bucknell University, the Corrington Medal for Literary Excellence Centenary College 2002, the Smartt Family prize from the Yale Review and the John Frederick Nims Award from Poetry Magazine 2002.

Her volume of poemsAgainst Love Poetrywas aNew York TimesNotable Book of the Year.

Her volumeDomestic Violence(2007) was shortlisted for theForward prizein the UK. Her poem 'Violence Against Women' from the same volume was awarded the James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry for the best poem published in 2007 inShenandoahmagazine.

In 2012, Boland won aPEN Awardfor creative nonfiction with her collection of essays,A Journey With Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poetpublished in 2012.

In 2016 she was inducted into theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.In 2017 she received the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards.

On 25 May 2018 she was elected an honorary member of theRoyal Irish Academy.Boland received theIrish PEN Award for Literaturein 2019.

Death and legacy

Boland was writer in residence at theNational Maternity Hospital, Dublin,in 1994. During this time she composed 'Night Feed' and 'The Tree of Life', and her work remains on a plaque in the hospital garden.

Boland died in Dublin on 27 April 2020, aged 75.

In 2020, Boland was posthumously awarded theCosta Book Award for poetryfor her final collectionThe Historians.

Publications

Poetry

• 23 Poems.Dublin:Gallagher, 1962.
• Autumn Essay.Dublin:Gallagher, 1963.
• Eavan Boland Poetry/Prose Joseph O’Malley.Dublin:Gallagher, 1963.
• New Territory.Dublin:Allen Figgis, 1967.
• W. B. Yeats and His World.WithMicheál Mac Liammóir.London:Thames,1971;New York:Thames & Hudson,1998.
• The War Horse.London:Victor Gollancz,1975.
• In Her Own Image.Dublin:Arlen House, 1980.
• Introducing Eavan Boland.Princeton, New Jersey:Ontario Review P, 1981.
• Night Feed.Dublin:Arlen House, 1982. Reissue:Manchester:Carcanet Press,1994.
• The Journey and Other Poems.Dublin:Arlen House, 1986;Manchester:Carcanet Press,1987.
• Selected Poems.Manchester:Carcanet Press,1989.
• Outside History.Manchester:Carcanet Press,1990.
• Outside History: Selected Poems 1980–1990.New York:Norton,1990.
• In a Time of Violence.New York:Norton,1994;Manchester:Carcanet,1994.
• Collected Poems.Manchester:Carcanet Press,1995.
• Penguin Modern Poets: Carol Ann Duffy, Vicki Feaver, Eavan Boland.London:Penguin,1995.
• An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967–1987.New York:Norton,1996.
• The Lost Land.Manchester:Carcanet Press,1998.
• The Lost Land: Poems.New York:Norton,1998.
• Against Love Poetry.New York:Norton,2001.
• Code.Manchester:Carcanet Press,2001.
• Three Irish Poets: An Anthology: Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Mary O’Malley.Ed. Eavan Boland.Manchester:Carcanet Press,2003.
• After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets.Trans. Eavan Boland.Princeton, New Jersey:Princeton UP,2004.
• New Collected Poems.Manchester:Carcanet Press,2005.
• Domestic Violence.Manchester:Carcanet Press,2007;New York:Norton,2007.
• Irish Writers on Writing.Ed.San Antonio:Trinity University Press,2007.
• Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English & American Literature.Ed.Joseph Epstein.Philadelphia,PA:Paul Dry Books,2007. (Illustrated byBarry Moser)
• Selected Poems by Charlotte Mew.Ed.Manchester:Carcanet Press,2008.
• New Collected Poems.New York:Norton,2008.
• The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology.Ed. WithEdward Hirsch.New York:Norton,2008.
• A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming A Woman Poet.(prose essays)Manchester:Carcanet Press,2011;New York:Norton,2011
• New Selected Poems(poems)Manchester:Carcanet Press,2013.
• Eavan Boland: A Poet's Dublin: Edited by Paula Meehan and Jody Allen Randolph.(poems)Manchester:Carcanet Press,2014.
• A Woman Without A Country(poems)Manchester:Carcanet Press,2014;New York:Norton,2014.
• Eavan Boland: A Poet's Dublin: Edited by Paula Meehan and Jody Allen Randolph.(poems)New York:WW. Norton, 2016.
• The Historians: Poems.(poems)New York:WW. Norton, 2020.

Prose

• Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time.New York:Norton,1995;Manchester:Carcanet Press,1995.
• The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms.Ed. Eavan Boland andMark Strand.New York:Norton,2000.
• The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology.Ed. WithEdward Hirsch.New York:Norton,2008.
• A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming A Woman Poet.(prose essays)Manchester:Carcanet Press,2011;New York:Norton,2011.

See also

• Irish poetry
• List of Irish writers

Further reading

• Allen Randolph, Jody.Eavan Boland.Contemporary Irish Writers. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2014.
• Allen Randolph, Jody.Eavan Boland: A SourcebookManchester:Carcanet Press,2007.
• Allen Randolph, Jody.Eavan Boland: A Critical Companion.New York: Norton, 2008.
• Allen Randolph, Jody, and Anthony Roche, eds.Special Edition: Eavan Boland.Irish University Review 23.1 (Spring/Summer 1993).
• Allen Randolph, Jody, ed.Special Issue: Eavan Boland.Colby Quarterly 35.4 (Dec. 1999).
• Haberstroh, Patricia Boyle,Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets.Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 1996.
• Hagen, Patricia L., and Thomas W. Zelman.Eavan Boland and the History of the Ordinary.Bethesda, MD:Academica Press,2004.
• Müller, Sabina J.Through the Mythographer's eye: Myth and Legend in the work ofSeamus Heaneyand Eavan Boland.Tübingen: Francke, 2007
• Villar-Argáiz, Pilar.Eavan Boland's Evolution As an Irish Woman Poet: An Outsider within an Outsider's Culture.Ceredigion, UK: Mellon, 2007.
• Villar-Argáiz, Pilar.The Poetry of Eavan Boland: A Postcolonial Reading.Bethesda, MD:Academica Press,2008.
• Rióna Ní Fhrighil.Briathra, Béithe agus Banfhilí: Filíocht Eavan Boland agus Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.An Clóchomhar: Dublin 2009
• Allen Randolph, Jody.Eavan Boland (Contemporary Irish Writers).Bucknell University Press, 2013.
• Campbell, Siobhan, O'Mahony, Nessa (editors):.Eavan Boland: Inside History.Arlen House, 2016,ISBN978-1-85132-150-6

External links

• Audio:Eavan Boland's 'Journey' from the KQEDs Forum podcast"Eavan Boland's Journey] fromKQED"Forum" withMichael KrasnyonNPR
• Audio:Eavan Boland reads "The Wife's Lament"fromThe Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation
• Audio:Eavan Boland reads "Atlantis-A Lost Sonnet"fromDomestic Violence
• Essay on Science of Cartography by Eavan Boland
• Eavan Boland at Academy of American Poets
• Interview at Academy of American Poets
• Eavan Boland page at the Poetry Foundation
• Eavan Boland Notebook at Poetry magazine
• An Interview with Jody Allen-Randolph
• An Interview at Caffeine Destiny
• Eavan Boland at Irish Writers Online
• Eavan Boland: "Letter to a Young Woman Poet"
• Address by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to US Congress April 2008
• Eavan Boland poem:Quarantine
• Eavan Boland in Iowa 2009
• Stanford, The Dish: Eavan Boland wins Pen Award
• Bookslut: Review of "A Journey with Two Maps"
• The New Republic, Obituary for Seamus Heaney 30 August 2013
• The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor "The Necessity for Irony" September 2013
• The Guardian, The Saturday Poem:The Long Evening of their Leavetakings 2 November 2013
• PN Review: Introduction to the Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, November 2013