Women’s Poetry, maintain that Boland uses the
poetic form as a vehicle for scrutinizing ‘‘Ire-
land’s overlapping literary and political history’’
and for criticizing ‘‘the exclusion of women from
native poetic traditions.’’ This point is certainly
addressed in ‘‘Outside History,’’ in which Boland
focuses on the feeling of existing outside of the
realm of Irish history. Margaret Mills Harper’s
essay on Boland’s poetry collectionOutside His-
toryis included in the 1997 volumeRepresenting
Ireland: Gender, Class, Nationality, edited by
Susan Shaw Sailer. In this essay, Harper dis-
cusses how Boland’s poetry often explores the
theme of death. Harper states that ‘‘the intimacy
of death and language form the backbone of
Boland’s work, both as a structural principle
and an aesthetic position.’’ In ‘‘Outside History’’
Boland offers just such an intimate exploration
of the idea of death, addressing as well the failure
of Irish literary history to incorporate the figure
of the female poet.
In an essay on postcolonialism (the cultural
and political aftereffects of being a colony, such
as of Great Britain) in Boland’s work, appearing
in Contemporary Women’s Poetry: Reading/
Writing/Practice(2000), Rose Atfield likewise
examines the estrangement Boland emphasizes.
Atfield observes in Boland’s work a sense of
exclusion that stems from her status as a female
Irish poet. Catriona Clutterbuck, as well, in a
2005 essay for theYearbook of English Studies,
centers a study of Boland’s work on the poet’s
efforts to recover the experience of the outsider,
or ‘‘the Other,’’ as termed by Clutterbuck. The
whole of Boland’s poetry, Clutterbuck asserts,
represents an effort to bring the voice of ‘‘the
Other,’’ the outsider, the estranged, ‘‘from outside
to inside history.’’ Boland’s troubled relationship
with her historical status is further explored in
Shara McCallum’s 2004 essay appearing in the
Antioch Review. McCallum offers a detailed anal-
ysis of the relationship between myth and history
in Boland’s poetry. McCallum additionally stud-
ies Boland’s use of the free-verse lyric form.
McCallum finds that Boland uses the lyric to
her advantage and provides a ‘‘welcome respite’’
from debates among poets and critics between
those who favor either pure lyric or pure narra-
tive forms. Despite Boland’s often-conflicted atti-
tude toward her cultural and literary historicalWinding, unpaved road(Image copyright Oksana Perkins, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
Outside History