foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
4.0
Eavan Boland writes with an admirable authority of tone. Though her essays are reflective, she does not couch her conclusions with uncertainties: through much thought, she has reached a conclusion that she wants to share with her reader. This authority feels particularly remarkable in a woman writer: men allow themselves to speak from a position of authority, whether earned or not; women, even very accomplished ones like Boland, often address the reader from a place of ambiguity. There is room for ambiguity in writing, but there is also something very compelling about Boland's frank, definite tone. She invites argument -- this reader felt like she could have sat down and had a constructive disagreement with her, but only after she has researched and thought as long and hard as Boland has.
Divided into two sections, the "two maps" of the title, the book deals with Boland's journey to becoming a poet, and with women writers who have pointed her on her way. The first section includes some details of autobiography, but it's not a memoir -- the essays are constructed around the central questions or conundrums of Boland's writing life, while looking back at the canon of poetry as it was presented in the 60s and 70s. Though women has been writing poetry for centuries, the canon didn't reflect this, and Boland questioned the subjects which men wrote about, and how they reflected or did not reflect her own life. She asks about what poetry does, what the lyric poem is, and how poetry reflects the interior of the mind and of the household. The second section is less personal: she writes about women poets she has admired or who have guided on her way to becoming a poet. Some of these are excellent -- her writing on Charlotte Mew immediately sent me in search of more of Mew's work -- and some are a little too short, or lack nuance, such as her reflections on Gwendolyn Brookes.
The book concludes with a "Letter to a Young Woman Poet", in the style of Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet". It is moving and evocative. It's wonderful and inspiring to read Boland's essays: she is an excellent writer of criticism as well as an important poet.
Divided into two sections, the "two maps" of the title, the book deals with Boland's journey to becoming a poet, and with women writers who have pointed her on her way. The first section includes some details of autobiography, but it's not a memoir -- the essays are constructed around the central questions or conundrums of Boland's writing life, while looking back at the canon of poetry as it was presented in the 60s and 70s. Though women has been writing poetry for centuries, the canon didn't reflect this, and Boland questioned the subjects which men wrote about, and how they reflected or did not reflect her own life. She asks about what poetry does, what the lyric poem is, and how poetry reflects the interior of the mind and of the household. The second section is less personal: she writes about women poets she has admired or who have guided on her way to becoming a poet. Some of these are excellent -- her writing on Charlotte Mew immediately sent me in search of more of Mew's work -- and some are a little too short, or lack nuance, such as her reflections on Gwendolyn Brookes.
The book concludes with a "Letter to a Young Woman Poet", in the style of Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet". It is moving and evocative. It's wonderful and inspiring to read Boland's essays: she is an excellent writer of criticism as well as an important poet.
jeeleongkoh's review
4.0
This collection of essays forms an interesting companion to this Irish woman poet's body of poetry. Again and again Boland returns to her memory of being a young wife and mother in a new suburb outside of Dublin in the 1970s, when violence in the North unsettled life in the South. "Domestic Violence," which ends the first section of biographical essays, records especially succinctly Boland's forceful attempt to subvert the received poetic tradition in order to make room for, and give significance to, the domestic poem.
The second section titled "Maps" consists of critical pieces on women poets who gave her help and direction in questioning the tradition that she loves. There are essays here on Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, Charlotte Mew, Sylvia Plath, Edna St, Vincent Millay, Denise Levertov, Anne Bradstreet, Gwendolyn Brooks and Paula Meehan. The most illuminating essay is on Bradstreet. Boland shows how the contemporary of Marvell and Milton wrote herself into a Puritan New Englander. There are few surprises in the other pieces, though the judgments are always sympathetic and persuasive. The writing is sometimes more obscure than necessary, but the obscurity is partly a result of desiring to be suggestive, not definitive.
The last section is made up of a single essay, a letter to an imaginary Young Woman Poet, in a conscious nod to Rilke. The letter exhorts the young poet to change the tradition, and not to change or curb herself to fit the tradition. As is the case in such missives, the letter-writer is writing mostly to her younger self. The final figure of friendship between generations is deeply humane and democratic.
Throughout the book Boland strives to recover the context of a poet's life in order to read the poet's text more deeply. It is an approach that runs counter to Pound's strictures against biographical criticism, also adopted by the New Critics. For Boland, however, the life is bigger than the poem, and too much is lost when the life is disregarded. This book provides Boland's life to go with her poetry.
The second section titled "Maps" consists of critical pieces on women poets who gave her help and direction in questioning the tradition that she loves. There are essays here on Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, Charlotte Mew, Sylvia Plath, Edna St, Vincent Millay, Denise Levertov, Anne Bradstreet, Gwendolyn Brooks and Paula Meehan. The most illuminating essay is on Bradstreet. Boland shows how the contemporary of Marvell and Milton wrote herself into a Puritan New Englander. There are few surprises in the other pieces, though the judgments are always sympathetic and persuasive. The writing is sometimes more obscure than necessary, but the obscurity is partly a result of desiring to be suggestive, not definitive.
The last section is made up of a single essay, a letter to an imaginary Young Woman Poet, in a conscious nod to Rilke. The letter exhorts the young poet to change the tradition, and not to change or curb herself to fit the tradition. As is the case in such missives, the letter-writer is writing mostly to her younger self. The final figure of friendship between generations is deeply humane and democratic.
Throughout the book Boland strives to recover the context of a poet's life in order to read the poet's text more deeply. It is an approach that runs counter to Pound's strictures against biographical criticism, also adopted by the New Critics. For Boland, however, the life is bigger than the poem, and too much is lost when the life is disregarded. This book provides Boland's life to go with her poetry.
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