Eavan Aisling Boland (24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, 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 the

Leaving Certificate A secondary school leaving qualification is a document signifying that the holder has fulfilled any secondary education requirements of their locality, often including the passage of a final qualification examination. For each leaving certifica ...

. She was a recipient of the

Lannan Literary Award for Poetry The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

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 appointed Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom; the family followed him to London, where Boland had her first experiences of

anti-Irish sentiment Anti-Irish sentiment includes oppression, persecution, discrimination, or hatred of Irish people as an ethnic group or a nation. It can be directed against the island of Ireland in general, or directed against Irish emigrants and their descendan ...

. 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 attend Holy Child School in 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 from

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

in 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 University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

, and

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

, and was a member of the

International Writing Program The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the IWP has hosted o ...

at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 co ...

. She was also writer in residence at Trinity College Dublin, and at the National 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 friend

Gabrielle Calvocoressi Gabrielle Calvocoressi is an American poet, editor, essayist, and professor. Life and career Gabrielle Calvocoressi was born in 1974 in central Connecticut. Their family owned movie theaters, including a drive-in, in several small towns across ...

, she "loved gossip like fish love water." In the late 1970s 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 between

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

and her home in Dublin.

Poetry

Eavan Boland's first book of poetry was ''New Territory'' published in 1967 with Dublin publisher Allen Figgis. This was followed by ''The War Horse'' (1975), ''In Her Own Image'' (1980) and ''Night 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 the National 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 the UK, where she is primarily published by

Carcanet Press Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt. In 2000 it was named the ''Sunday Times'' millennium Small Publisher of the Year. History ''Carcanet'' was originally a lit ...

. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

her publisher is

W. W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton A ...

. Her poem "

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" was one of 10 poems shortlisted for

RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, whil ...

's selection of Ireland's favourite poems of the last 100 years in 2015. Former Irish Taoiseach,

Bertie Ahern Bartholomew Patrick "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2008, Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997, Tánaiste a ...

, quoted from her poem "''The Emigrant Irish''" in his address to the joint houses of the

US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...

in May 2008. On March 15, 2016,

President Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

quoted lines from her poem "''On a Thirtieth Anniversary''" (from "''Against Love Poetry''" 2001) in his remarks at a reception in the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

to celebrate

St Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...

. 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-edited ''The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms'' (with

Mark Strand Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004 ...

; W. W. Norton & Co., 2000). She also published a volume of translations in 2004 called ''After Every War'' (

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

). With Edward 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 in ''The Arts Programme'' broadcast on

RTÉ Radio RTÉ Radio is a division of the Irish national broadcasting organisation Raidió Teilifís Éireann. RTÉ Radio broadcasts four analogue channels and five digital channels nationwide. Founded in January 1926 as 2RN, the first broadcaster in t ...

. Her other awards include a Lannan Foundation Award in Poetry and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award. Her collection ''In a Time of Violence'' (1994) received a Lannan Award and was shortlisted for the

T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize that was, for many years, awarded by the Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Priz ...

. 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 poems ''Against Love Poetry'' was a

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Notable Book of the Year. Her volume ''

Domestic Violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partn ...

'' (2007) was shortlisted for the

Forward prize The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The ...

in 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 in '' Shenandoah'' magazine. In 2012, Boland won a

PEN Award This is a list of awards sponsored by International PEN centres. There are over 145 PEN centres on the world, some of which hold annual literary awards. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" literary awa ...

for creative nonfiction with her collection of essays, ''A Journey With Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet'' published in 2012. In 2016 she was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. 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 the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier learned society and one its leading cultural ...

Death and legacy

Boland was writer in residence at the National 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, from a stroke. In 2020, Boland was posthumously awarded the Costa Book Award for poetry for her final collection ''The Historians''.

Publications

Poetry

* ''23 Poems''.

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

: Gallagher, 1962. * ''Autumn Essay''.

: Gallagher, 1963. * ''Eavan Boland Poetry/Prose Joseph O’Malley''.

: Gallagher, 1963. * ''New Territory''.

: Allen Figgis, 1967. * ''W. B. Yeats and His World''. With

Micheál Mac Liammóir Micheál Mac Liammóir (born Alfred Willmore; 25 October 1899 – 6 March 1978) was an actor, designer, dramatist, writer and impresario in 20th-century Ireland. Though born in London to an English family with no Irish connections, he emigrated ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

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, 1971;

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

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, 1998. * ''The War Horse''.

Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Chris ...

, 1975. * ''In Her Own Image''.

: Arlen House, 1980. * ''Introducing Eavan Boland''.

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of w ...

: Ontario Review P, 1981. * ''Night Feed''.

: Arlen House, 1982. Reissue:

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

, 1994. * ''The Journey and Other Poems''.

: Arlen House, 1986;

, 1987. * ''Selected Poems''.

, 1989. * ''Outside History''.

, 1990. * ''Outside History: Selected Poems 1980–1990''.

: Norton, 1990. * ''In a Time of Violence''.

: Norton, 1994;

Carcanet Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt (poet), Michael Schmidt. In 2000 it was named the ''Sunday Times'' millennium Small Publisher of the Year. History ''Carcanet ...

, 1994. * ''Collected Poems''.

, 1995. * ''Penguin Modern Poets: Carol Ann Duffy, Vicki Feaver, Eavan Boland''.

Penguin Penguins (order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adap ...

, 1995. * ''An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967–1987''.

: Norton, 1996. * ''The Lost Land''.

, 1998. * ''The Lost Land: Poems''.

: Norton, 1998. * ''Against Love Poetry''.

: Norton, 2001. * ''Code''.

, 2001. * ''Three Irish Poets: An Anthology: Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Mary O’Malley''. Ed. Eavan Boland.

, 2003. * ''After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets''. Trans. Eavan Boland.

: Princeton UP, 2004. * ''New Collected Poems''.

, 2005. * ''Domestic Violence''.

, 2007;

: Norton, 2007. * ''Irish Writers on Writing''. Ed.

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Trinity University Press Trinity University Press is a university press affiliated with Trinity University, which is located in San Antonio, Texas. Trinity University Press was officially founded in 1967 after the university acquired the Illinois-based Principia Press. T ...

, 2007. * ''Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English & American Literature''. Ed.

Joseph Epstein Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans. Communi ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, PA:

Paul Dry Books Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, 2007. (Illustrated by

Barry Moser Barry Moser (born 1940) is an American artist and educator, known as a printmaker specializing in wood engravings, and an illustrator of numerous works of literature. He is also the owner and operator of the Pennyroyal Press, an engraving and smal ...

) * ''Selected Poems by Charlotte Mew''. Ed.

, 2008. * ''New Collected Poems''.

: Norton, 2008. * ''The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology''. Ed. With Edward Hirsch.

: Norton, 2008. * ''A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming A Woman Poet''. (prose essays)

, 2011;

: Norton, 2011 * ''New Selected Poems'' (poems)

, 2013. * ''Eavan Boland: A Poet's Dublin: Edited by Paula Meehan and Jody Allen Randolph''. (poems)

, 2014. * ''A Woman Without A Country'' (poems)

, 2014;

: Norton, 2014."Eavan Boland: Selected Bibliography." ''Eavan Boland: A Critical Companion''. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008. * ''Eavan Boland: A Poet's Dublin: Edited by Paula Meehan and Jody Allen Randolph''. (poems)

: WW. Norton, 2016. * ''The Historians: Poems''. (poems)

: WW. Norton, 2020.

Prose

* ''Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time''.

: Norton, 1995;

, 1995. * ''The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms''. Ed. Eavan Boland and

: Norton, 2000. * ''The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology''. Ed. With Edward Hirsch.

: Norton, 2008. * ''A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming A Woman Poet''. (prose essays)

, 2011;

: Norton, 2011.

References

External links

* Audio
Eavan Boland's 'Journey' from the KQED''s Forum podcast
"Eavan Boland's Journey''] from KQED-FM, KQED "Forum" with Michael Krasny on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

'' * Audio
Eavan Boland reads "The Wife's Lament"
from ''The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation'' * Audio
Eavan Boland reads "Atlantis-A Lost Sonnet"
from ''Domestic Violence''

Eavan Boland at Academy of American Poets

Interview at Academy of American Poets

Eavan Boland Notebook at Poetry magazine

An Interview with Jody Allen-Randolph

Eavan Boland:"Letter to a Young Woman Poet"

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 August 30 2013

The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor "The Necessity for Irony" September, 2013

The Guardian, The Saturday Poem:The Long Evening of their Leavetakings November2 2013

PN Review: Introduction to the Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, November 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boland, Eavan 1944 births 2020 deaths Irish women poets Jacob's Award winners Writers from Dublin (city) Radio personalities from the Republic of Ireland 20th-century Irish poets 20th-century Irish women writers 21st-century Irish poets 21st-century Irish women writers Alumni of Trinity College Dublin International Writing Program alumni Members of the Royal Irish Academy The New Yorker people People educated at Holy Child Killiney

Early life and education

Career

Teaching and Professorial roles

Poetry

Editing and translating

Awards

Death and legacy

Publications

Poetry

Prose

See also

Further reading

References

External links