The Appeal of Eavan Boland's Poetry

“The appeal of Eavan Boland’s poetry” The appeal of Eavan Boland’s poetry is how real she is as her personal experiences are reflected in her poems. Her writing is humble and domestic making it accessible to the reader as she is interested in the voices of the powerless in society such as in ‘The Famine Road’. Being that she is from Dublin her references in her poems make the poems relevant and accessible to readers who are also from Dublin as in ‘The war Horse’. Her appeal to women is obvious as she talks of issues directly relating to mothers as in ‘Child of Our Time’ or ‘This moment’ but also not just mothers as in ‘The Famine Road’. However, her appeal is not just for women as she has feminist concerns but is not a ‘doctrinaire’ feminist, she does not side with only women as even in ‘The Famine Road’ she speaks of Ireland’s famine of the 1840’s which appeals to both women and men. Firstly, the structure of ‘The famine Road’ is divided into 4 alternating stanzas for each story, each of which plays off the other in an ironic counterpoint with italics used for the doctor and woman’s conversation. This makes the poem accessible as there is a clear divide between the stories yet they are closely related. Although her use of an irregular rhyming scheme with many half rhymes such as “Relief” and “safe” and her use of enjambment and irregular sentence lengths ranging from one to six lines long reflect the complexity of the poem so it is not to say her accessibility in her poems makes them easy. The short sentences reflect the cold and dismissive tone of the British “Your servant Jones”. The use of many commas and full stops produces a slower pace to the poem as there is no urgency in the casual tone of the British and the doctor, showing their indifference to the Irish and the woman in both stories.

Secondly, the tone of the poem is set within the first sentence with the choice of language. The first three words are directly offensive to Irish people, “Idle as