Description

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A landmark volume of essays from “Ireland’s leading feminist poet” (New York Times Book Review) that celebrates a transformative vision of womanhood, nation, and poetry.

Eavan Boland was a trailblazing poet, critic, teacher, and essayist. Her writing shifted the conversation on how women redefined poetry in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—both in Ireland and abroad. This generous and wise volume contains essays selected from the two volumes Boland published during her lifetime, Object Lessons (1995) and A Journey with Two Maps (2011); major later writings addressing the changing nature of poetry, the poet, and Ireland; and an unpublished draft of “Daughter”—an extended lyric essay that Boland was working on at the time of her death.



With a compelling blend of memoir, analysis, and argument, Citizen Poet traces the arc of Boland’s pioneering view of nationhood through the lens of womanhood. Carving a path for the next generation, she broke open the male-dominated canon of Irish literature and mapped her poetic journey through the contours of life as a mother, daughter, and citizen.

About the Author

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Eavan Boland (1944—2020) was the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, including Outside History and several volumes of nonfiction, and was coeditor of the anthology The Making of Poem. Born in Dublin, Ireland, she was one of the foremost female voices in Irish literature. She received a Lannan Foundation Award and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award, among other honors. She taught at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Bowdoin College, and Stanford University, where she was the director of the creative writing program.

Jody Allen Randolph has taught at University College Dublin; the British Studies at Oxford Programme at St. John's College, Oxford; and Westmont College. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Praise For…

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The essays in Citizen Poet record Boland’s struggle to harmonize the parts of herself that she once thought were unreconcilable, and to renew and reshape the Irish poetic tradition through the inclusion of women’s voices and stories…Though there has been an explosion of writing by Irish women since the early seventies, Boland’s essays remind us that these reconciliations are a recent phenomenon. They remind us, too, of the change she helped bring about, which is nothing less than the redefinition and expansion of what Irish poetry—what any poetry—can be.

— from the foreword by Heather Clark, author of Red Comet

Eavan Boland’s fierce, provocative, and insightful autobiographical essays continue to challenge received ideas about poetry, womanhood, and national identity. These stirring and forthright pieces are a significant contribution not just to Irish and American poetry, but also to world literature.
— Edward Hirsch, poet and critic

Eavan Boland’s essays are the work of an ever-generous, insightful and knowing cartographer. No one articulates the complexities, challenges and nuances of being an Irish female poet like she does in these original, arresting and trailblazing essays. Citizen Poet is a must-read for anyone interested in poetry, identity and the responsibilities of the artist.

— Victoria Kennefick, Dalkey and Seamus Heaney Prize winning poet