Object Lessons
"I have put this book together, not as a prose narrative is usually constructed, but as a poem might be: in turnings and returnings. In parts which find and repeat themselves and re-state the argument until it loses its reasonable edge and hopefully becomes a sort of cadence".
In "Object Lessons" Eavan Boland meditates on womanhood, nationhood, and the relationship, for a writer, between the two. Deeply personal, focused on the places and times of her own lived experience, "Object Lessons" finds in the details of one writer's life the larger significances that link the individual to a community, culture, a history and a future. Boland explores what it means to move from being the object of a poem to being its author, what it means to claim a radically new space as a woman and a poet, while retaining a verifying sense of continuity and connection. The book becomes a portrait of a critical imagination making a new path, finding new meaning in the objects it encounters.
In "Object Lessons" Eavan Boland meditates on womanhood, nationhood, and the relationship, for a writer, between the two. Deeply personal, focused on the places and times of her own lived experience, "Object Lessons" finds in the details of one writer's life the larger significances that link the individual to a community, culture, a history and a future. Boland explores what it means to move from being the object of a poem to being its author, what it means to claim a radically new space as a woman and a poet, while retaining a verifying sense of continuity and connection. The book becomes a portrait of a critical imagination making a new path, finding new meaning in the objects it encounters.
About the author
Born in Dublin in 1944, Eavan Boland studied in Ireland, London and New York. Her first book was published in 1967. She has taught at Trinity College, University College and Bowdoin College Dublin, and at the University of Iowa. She is currently Mabury Knapp Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, California. A pioneering figure in Irish poetry, Boland's previous works include "The Journey and other poems" (1987), "Night Feed" (1994), "The Lost Land" (1998) and "Code" (2001). Her poems and essays have appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Kenyon Review and American Poetry Review. She is a regular reviewer for the Irish Times. She divides her time between California and Dublin where she lives with her husband, the novelist Kevin Casey.
Reviews
"This is essential reading for any woman interested in poetry" – Robyn Marsack, Director of the Scottish Poetry Library