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Selected Poems

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This is a book not of memorable lines but of memorable poems. Selected from twenty years of Eavan Boland's work, it brings back into circulation writing that has long been unavailable and provides her growing readership with an overview of what she has done.

Eavan Boland's poetry is radically different in tone and texture from the work of her Irish contemporaries. Her concerns are never parochial. In 1979 she renounced "the evasion out of fear from some realities, and the folly of that evasion, because realities catch up with you." Her poems are brave in quest of those realities, finding a language in which to engage them.

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1989

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About the author

Eavan Boland

84 books160 followers
Born in Dublin in 1944, Eavan Boland studied in Ireland, London and New York. Her first book was published in 1967. She taught at Trinity College, University College Dublin, Bowdoin College, the University of Iowa, and Stanford University. A pioneering figure in Irish poetry, Boland's works include The Journey and other poems (1987), Night Feed (1994), The Lost Land (1998) and Code (2001). Her poems and essays appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Kenyon Review and American Poetry Review. She was a regular reviewer for the Irish Times. She was married to the novelist Kevin Casey.

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for Susanne.
434 reviews23 followers
July 10, 2025
Extraordinary. Some of the most grounded yet esoteric poetry I have ever read. I hung on every image, somehow both realistic and fantastical at the same moment. Many lines left me utterly gobsmacked.

If you live in San Diego County, the UCSD library has two of her collections, and they are well worth your time. If you have a public library card (SD city or county), you can order Eavan Boland's poetry collections via Link+ or Circuit.

This book contains some of the most striking poetry I have ever read.
Profile Image for Vivian Zenari.
Author 3 books5 followers
May 1, 2019
I love her readable but still challenging style and her combination of homeliness and allusiveness
Profile Image for Elevate Difference.
379 reviews87 followers
January 11, 2009
Charlotte Mew was born in London in 1869. Outward appearances suggest that she had a typical Victorian family and life, but Eavan Boland recounts how the life of Charlotte Mew was anything but normal. Hers was a life familiar with death, insanity, financial problems, gender and sexuality issues, and more. Out of this darkness and pain of being an outsider was born, according to Boland, “a pre-modernist narrator, gathering her world into lines which tumble off the edge of the page with the strain of holding it together.” In addition, “the great unshackling of women’s voices in poetry has one of its beginnings right here. These sad beautiful poems are full of rendings and breakings and burnings.”

Charlotte Mew was nearly fifty when her first book of poetry, The Farmer’s Bride was published in Britain in 1916. In 1921, the volume was reissued in the United States with the addition of a few more poems and a new title, Saturday Market. Then in 1953, her Collected Poems was published in both Britain and the U.S. This book, Selected Poems, was just published as a slim volume of two dozen poems that hold many treasures to show the powerful voice of this poet. It is hard to pick a favorite poem from this book; all are enjoyable and accessible—some short and some long—but “A Farewell” seems to be as representative as any:

Remember me and smile, as smiling too,
I have remembered things that went their way—
The dolls with which I grew too wise to play—
Or over-wise—and kissed, as children do,
And so dismissed them; yes, and even as you
Have done with this poor piece of painted clay—
Not wantonly, but wisely, shall we say?
As one who, haply, tunes his heart anew.

Only I wish her eyes may not be blue,
The eyes of a new angel. Ah! She may
Miss something that I found,--perhaps the clue
To those long silences of yours, which grew
Into one word. And should she not be gay,
Poor lady! Well, she too must have her day!

Thanks to Eavan Boland for assembling this volume and showcasing this poet and her interesting qualities and work. The insightful introduction provides much perspective on the writer and her times, as well as an invitation to read more of Mew's work.

Review by Kathleen Welton
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