Against Love Poetry: Poems

From Library Journal
For over 20 years, Eavan Boland (b. 1944 in Dublin) has been interweaving themes of the importance of poetry, Irish history, and women's identity. This volume (her ninth book of poetry), which dramatizes conflicts between marriage and freedom ("what is hidden in/ this ordinary, aging human love") could be subtitled "contradictions of a daily love." "Against" overdone "love poetry" ("Let no love poem ever come to this threshold") because it falsifies "the edge of language," she instead seeks "exact patience" and rapport between self and place, man and wife "mated for life." Overcoming her uncertainties, Boland finds relief in a "merciless inventory" that utilizes imagination to transcend computer and moral "codes" ("the code marriage makes of passion"), necessary, fixed things subject to "duty, dailyness, routine." The Yeatsian landscape of her poetry ("salmon-rich/ rivers and birdlife/ and lilac of this island") is the troubled starting point for her search for identity. But to read these poems only as a tour of the Irish countryside is to acquiesce to the "terrible regard" of those who romanticize its "savage acres." Finally, Boland's self-recognition is an expression of an honest spirit that finds strength in "what wears, what endures." For contemporary collections. Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, PA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
A collection of poems about marriage by one of our most celebrated poets. These powerful poems are written against the perfections and idealizations of traditional love poetry. The man and woman in these poems are husband and wife, custodians of ordinary, aging human love. They are not figures in a love poem. Time is their essential witness, and not their destroyer. A New York Times Notable Book and a Newsday Favorite Book of 2001.


About the Author
Eavan Boland lives in Ireland and California. She teaches at Stanford University.


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These powerful poems are written against the perfections and idealizations of traditional love poetry. Against Love Poetry is Eavan Boland's exploration of how time crodes the surfaces of love -- the body and memory -- while deeply refreshing the source of passion. The man and woman in these poems are husband and wife, custodians of ordinary, aging human love. Time is their essential witness, and not their destroyer.


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