Boland, Eavan 1997
Six o’clock: the kitchen bulbs which blister
Your dark, your housewives starting to nose
Out each other’s day, the claustrophobia
Of your back gardens varicose
With shrubs, make an ugly sister
Of you suburbia.
– Eavan Boland, “Ode to Suburbia”
Listen to Eavan Boland’s Poetry Center of Chicago reading:
Read this interview with Eavan Boland from PBS Newshour:
Conversation: Eavan Boland
Still a student when her first book was published, Eavan Boland has grown into one of Ireland’s most prominent poets. Her poems often examine the lives of women, looking at larger cultural issues through the lens of the details of everyday life.
All night the room breathes out its grief.
Exhales through surfaces. The sideboard.
The curtains: the stale air stalled there.
The kiln-fired claws of the china bird.
– Eavan Boland, “Exile! Exile!”
Watch Eavan Boland read and discuss her work on The Writing Life:
Eavan Boland on loss, history and poetry
Poet Eavan Boland speaks with poet Grace Cavalieri, host of the Library of Congress’ ‘The Poet and The Poem’ on this edition of HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life. This program blends the lyrical reading of Boland’s poetry with the discussion of craft, Irish history, loss and relationships.
