Write a Personal Response to the Poetry of Eavan Boland. (2005)
Eavan Boland
Write a personal response to the poetry of Eavan Boland. (2005)
‘And we discovered there
Love had the feather and muscle of wings
And had come to live with us,
A brother of fire and air’
Boland’s poetry is unique. It gives a voice to the experiences of modern women and the settings are familiar to the reader – the world of suburbia and of family. Eavan Boland also addresses Universal Themes, such as love, parenthood, violence and the beauty of the natural world, all of which make her work accessible. However, Boland’s work is also compellingly, fundamentally honest as she does not shirk away from difficult themes and issues in her own life. The most appealing aspect of Boland’s poetry is her tendency to draw parallels between the world of ancient Greek mythology, and the everyday experiences of the modern world. In this way she imbues her experiences with a special singular quality. By doing this Boland highlights one of the paradoxes of our existence. ‘All human experience is unique and universal’. While her work can be complicated by metaphor and symbolism, Boland’s language is generally conversational and enjoyable particularly in ‘Love’, ‘The Pomegranate’, and ‘This moment’.
‘Love’ is a deeply reflective poem and is by far the most fascinating Boland poem on the course. This poem deals with the complex, organic and changing nature of the relationship between husband and wife over a number of years. The poem opens with Boland describing herself in a ‘Mid-western town where we once lived and myths collided’. There, many years ago, the poet and her husband ‘had two infant children one of whom was touched by death in this town and spared’. This horrific experience of a child suffering with illness is recalled in an almost wistful tone. The terror of the experience strengthened the love bond between the poet and her husband and allowed them to endure their beloved child’s turmoil.
Boland employs a wonderful and visceral metaphor in the second stanza to capture the sheer power of their love when she recalls how ‘Love had the feather and muscle of wings and had come to live with us.’ In the previous stanza Boland refers to the ‘water the hero crossed on his way to hell’. Here Boland draws a parallel between her experiences and those of Aeneas. This allusion is continued in the second stanza but the tone changes when Boland recounts how Aeneas descended into Hades.
‘When the hero
Was hailed by his comrades in hell
Their mouths opened and their voices failed and
There is no knowing what they would have asked
About a life they had shared and lost.’
Aeneas shared adventure, survival and fear with these men. Now he cannot even communicate with them. Although they have shared past glories, they are now unable to communicate. It is that crucial fact that explains Boland’s selection of this myth to draw parallels with her own life. Boland and her husband were bound inextricably by love during their child’s illness. Boland still loves her husband, but in a different way. I believe that Boland is addressing the fundamental truth that love is organic, ever changing, ever evolving.
There are significant changes in the final stanza. The tone changes, the tense changes and the personal pronoun changes.
‘I am your wife.
It was years ago.
Our child is healed. We love each other still.
Across our day-to-day and ordinary distances
We speak plainly. We hear each other clearly.’
There is almost a lack of passion in these lines. Almost a tone of acceptance. The passion and intensity is absent: ‘Will we ever live so intensely again?’ The end of the poem is ambiguous and once again refers to the myth. ‘But the words are shadows and you cannot hear me, you walk away and I cannot follow.’ I found these words stimulating, engaging and thought provoking. Does this mean Boland wants to leave her husband? I personally don’t think so. I believe that Boland still loves her husband but recognises that love changes over time. It grows and matures into a different creature.
‘Love’ is the most interesting Boland poem but ‘This Moment’ is certainly the most beautiful. It is a brief poem in which Boland explores the beauty of the natural world, love and motherhood. This poem showcases Boland’s mastery of language as it is dramatically atmospheric and evocative.
The setting is familiar and accessible: ‘A neighbourhood. At dusk.’ The short lines create a sense of drama and anticipation which is highlighted by the following lines.
‘Things are getting ready
To happen
Out of sight.’
Boland emphasises the fact that wonderful, dangerous, inspirational, even legendary events happen everywhere, everyday, all around us. Our lives are special, are extraordinary, and we must take time to appreciate that fact. The unrivalled beauty of the world is captured when Boland employs one of the most effective and evocative similes I have ever encountered to capture the twilight of suburbia ‘One window is yellow as butter’. Yet it is the cinematic and uplifting image of lines 11-13 are what make this poem memorable:
‘A woman leans down to catch a child
Who runs into her arms
This moment.’
The simplicity, the economy of language, captures the essential simple power of love and highlights the fact that there is magic, wonder and myth all around us. Perhaps the last lines of the poem are a message to us, the reader? Perhaps it is easy to overcomplicate life and miss out on the beauty, wonder and love present everywhere.
‘Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.’
The power of a mother’s love is evident in ‘This Moment’ but it is this theme that lie at the heart of the fantastic poem ‘The Pomegranate’. Again this poem draws parallels between the poet’s life and the grandiose world of mythology. The title refers to the Greek myth of Ceres and Persephone, a tale of maternal love. The poet says that this is ‘The only legend I have ever loved’. She sees it as a story that is emblematic of the female experience and comments that ‘The best thing about the legend is that I can enter it anywhere and have’. This refers to Boland’s experiences as both a daughter and a mother.
The beautifully evocative and atmospheric lines thirteen to eighteen of the first stanza show Boland as a mother:
‘I walked out in a summer twilight
Searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
To make any bargain to keep her.’
The scene is familiar, the emotion automatic and intense. The mother loves her child. This is a universal truth and also is unique to the poet’s own experience.
As in ‘Love’. The poem makes a shift in tense in the middle section. Now the poet’s daughter is a teenager and the relationship has become more fractious. This is an experience that I can easily relate to as a teenager, and this poem made me understand my parents’ anxieties about me more readily. ‘My child asleep beside her teen magazines, her can of coke, her plate of uncut fruit’, Boland watches her daughter and realises that change in inevitable and she must let her daughter grow. She must overcome her maternal instincts and allow her daughter to experience all aspects of life, the good and the bad.
‘But what else
Can a mother give her daughter but such
Beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.’
These lines are thoughtful, philosophical, instantly accessible and extraordinary. I felt they had something to say to me about my life and experiences. The poet understands that her daughter will grow and transform from Persephone to Ceres. She will become a mother too, and then she will understand why Boland had such a difficult time when she wrote ‘I will say nothing’.
Eavan Boland’s poetry is appealing. Her work is interesting, intelligent and beautifully constructed. She is by far my favourite poet on the syllabus and I appreciate her poetry both for the interesting themes and her technical skill and mastery over language. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her poetry.