are they putting together the Irish poem differ-
ently?’’ That is the real question. They are put-
ting it together differently, and that means in
itself to cast a light around what is being done
in other ways and at other times. We need to
look at all this as part of the legitimate energies
that affect one another and country. But if you
look at it that way, the critique is actually
obstructing the perspective on that. So we are
not able at the moment to consider in this coun-
try: how do young women put together that
poem? What do they put into it and what do
they leave out of it? We can’t see that because
the whole jargon surrounding it is very emotive.
The most significant review to me was one in the
Irish Timeson my pamphlet, ‘‘A Kind of Scar’’—
the same essay that appeared later in theAPRas
‘‘Outside History.’’ The work was utterly dis-
missed. My editor said, ‘‘Should I do something
about it?’’ I said, ‘‘Leave it.’’ It’s always to me a
good thing when the murky undertows come to
the surface.
Source:Eavan Boland and Nancy Means Wright and
Dennis J. Hannan, ‘‘Q. and A. with Eavan Boland,’’ in
Irish Literary Supplement, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 1991,
pp. 10–11.
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and Myth,’’ inAntioch Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, Winter
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History, edited by T. W. Moody and F. X. Martin, Rob-
erts Rinehart Publishers, 2001, pp. 288–305.FURTHER READINGBoland, Eavan, Paula Meehan, and Mary O’Malley,
Three Irish Poets: An Anthology, Carcanet, 2003.
In this volume, selections of the poetic endeav-
ors of three of Ireland’s most established and
respected women poets are presented together,
allowing the reader the opportunity toOutside History