Critical Analysis of Eavan Boland\'s Poetry. PDF

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Analysis of poetry and works by Eavan Boland including - the war here, child of our time, famine road, the pomegranate, love and this moment....

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BOLAND ! It’s clear from reading Eavan Boland’s work that she has great experience with expressing her personal experiences and feelings to us though poetry. She takes advantage of this technique in many poems she also exquisitely disguises harsh truths about society within her poetry. She had an open minded and honest outlook of the world and was never afraid to express it. This honest outlook is present in poems such as The War Horse, Child Of Our Time and Famine Road, Boland truthfully reveals her opinions and thoughts on war. One of Eavan Bolands main appeals, is how she can transform a memory or emotion into poetry, she loves her kids and husband and she emphasizes this fact in The Pomegranate, Love, and This moment, she allows the reader to feel the emotions she’s feeling and understand life and how fast it can change. ! Eavan Bolands relationship with her children is one that has influenced her poetry greatly. The poem pomegranate emphasizes her feelings, about the changing relationship between mother and daughter, and the sense of loss Boland experiences as she watches her own daughter grow and mature. Mythic terms and legends are told through out the poem. This allows us to personify her emotions toward her daughter. “The story of a daughter lost in hell” refers to the legend of how Pluto kidnapped Persephone and kept her in the underworld. This specific legend meant a lot to Boland, and this allows her ‘to enter it anywhere’. She has experienced this legend from both points of view, as the child ‘in exile in a city of fogs and strange consonants’ and as the mother ‘searching for’ her daughter at bedtime’ . This also suggests that Boland has seen this before through experience and knows exactly what will happen to her daughter next. ‘I could warn her’ she fights the urge to alert her daughter of the dangers she will face in the future and the harshness of reality where ‘the rain is cold’ but she knows her daughter must learn from her own mistakes, trying to prevent her from growing will metaphorically only ‘diminish the gift’, so she decides that she ‘will say nothing’ and allow her daughter to embrace the legend of her own life as her mother has.! We recognize this same worry and vulnerability in the poem ‘This moment’ which is filled with carefully chosen short sentences, to highlight a particular moment in time, which forces us to stand still and appreciate vivid image that she creates for us.She sets the scene in “A neighbourhood. At dusk. “ The short sentences in the first few lines launch us into an atmosphere of anticipation, and mystery. As ‘Things are getting ready”, there is a calm sense of expectancy and curiosity as she continues ‘but not yet”. The idea that time itself has frozen still gives us the sense of vulnerability. She continues to enhance our awareness of the moment ending by contrasting between dark and light in the next stanza ‘stars and moths’ creates vivid pictures and realistic images that we can relate to. The simile of the “window is yellow as butter” sets a homely presence to the rest of the poem. Suddenly the time of peace and serenity ends, and the moment she has been building up to comes alive as “a mother leans down to catch a child”, it is almost as if nature is celebrating with her as her worry disappears and time continues on. This peaceful and love provoking poem shows us that the simple things in life can

be the most important, but it contrast greatly with “child of our time” which begins with the tone of sadness and of regret. The poet is mourning the loss of the innocent child, but in this she is also reproachful pointing out that “we”, have to take our share of the blame for what has happened. She continues this stanza directing it at the dead child, attempting to apologize for the destruction we have caused and unnecessary brutality of war, even though she understands that he ‘cannot listen’. She directs her disappointment at the public explaining using a paradox that the adults who are “living, learn, must learn from you, dead”, portraying that the roles have reversed as the adults are now learning from the child. Boland finishes the poem with sense of hope and motivation that we have the power to ‘rebuild our broken images’ she uses this metaphor to inspire and she finally finishes by allowing the child to ‘sleep’. Doing this allows him to be at peace knowing that he did not die for nothing as he can now ‘sleep in a world’ as his ‘final sleep has woken’ this emphatic paradox has made us aware of our carelessness and brutality. ! The poem Love is a great example of how Boland gives us an insight to her relationships though poetry. This poem has the tone of both love and loss. This poem like as the Pomegranate is mostly based on a memory, she reflects on a loving family memory in Iowa. The love between her and her husband is emphasized as she describes her happy Midwest memory’s in their ‘old apartment’. She sees love as a living thing, as always bird with ‘the feather and muscle of wings’,or an element ‘a brother of fire and air’. This technique choice captures the romantic feelings her and husband felt and the intensity of the romance is heightened by the idea that this passion will not last forever. The image also leads us on to the image of the mythical character of Aeneas as he journeyed into the underworld in search of his former companions but still cannot communicate with them . The myth is the pain of separation and when she uses this specific myth, she makes us realise the fragility that underlines all human relationships. Boland realises that she and her ‘dear companion’ will one day be parted in death: ‘You walk away and I cannot follow’. Boland begins to explore the idea that love has the power to change over time. The poem suddenly switches to the present using short dull sentences ‘I am your wife. It was years ago’ this suggest that the love has matured in a way that there is no longer a sense of liveliness but more a sense of arid routine. This contrast between what is and what was is highlighted as she flashes back to a memory ‘I see you as a hero in a text’. The memory expresses her deep urge to return to her husband as he was ‘on the bridge of the Iowa river’ but she knows in her heart that the love between them has changed and soon the memory of the love they shared will fade. ! Boland takes advantage of simple insignificant objects and events, to portray her open minded yet critical point of view on society with the use of metaphors, similes and symbols. In ‘The War Horse’ Boland focuses on the violence of the present. She opens the poem by setting the scene of ‘a dry night’ which immediately creates an image of casual, ordinary setting. As the horse continues his path and “stamps death” into the ground, “like a mint on the coinage of earth”, he dismissively tramples on innocent plants and flowers which just happened to

be in the way, much like the innocent bystanders who get in the way of crossfires and battles. In an instant ‘He is gone”, there is a sense of relief in the poem, as the horse disappears leaving the destruction behind him. This indifferent attitude shows how people are dismissive of wars brutal reality if it did not directly affect them. She then realizes a leaf is torn like a “maimed limb” she emphasizes this with the paradox ‘the screamless dead’ which symbolizes the dead people in war . She uses the specific language to link the leaf’ rose’ and ‘crocus’ the horse has destroyed to the innocent men women and children who were being killed unapologetically in Northern Ireland at the time,that her and her neighborhood completely dismiss daily. This poem makes is very clear that Boland feels a great deal of sympathy for the victims of her ignorance. ! The famine road is a poem which brilliantly links to completely contrasting topics to show the violence and immortality in the past. It compares the story of the suffering of the people during the Irish Famine to the suffering of a childless woman. The poem opens with a letter from Trevelyan to Jones in which he dismisses the suffering of the Irish. He suggests that these people be put to work to cure their ‘laziness’. This cruel ignorance of compassion and sympathy then continues as the poem moves to a doctor speaking to female patient. The doctor is apathetic , he doesn’t seem to realise the devastation of his words. The doctor continues to treat her unemotionally as the Irish continue to be treated heartlessly, and both are told to occupy themselves with pointless tasks like building roads to nowhere and growing her garden ‘grow garden, keep house, goodbye.’.The poem ends with the woman’s thoughts, she views her body like a famine road going nowhere.! In conclusion, Boland uses excellent language techniques to express her reflective into relationships and society. It’s clearly evident that she can amazingly disguise personal experiences and Harsh truths through out her poetry.!...