Lost Land

Boland Eavan

Eavan Boland's new book, her first since the "Collected Poems", is in two parts. The opening sequence entitled "Colony" explores the theme of Irish language and culture. This is followed by a collection of individual poems which open out from autobiography into a sense of larger belonging. "The Lost Land" of the title, the poet says, is "not exactly a country and not entirely a state of mind... the lost land is not a place that can be subdivided into history, or love, or memory. It is the poet's own, single, and private account of the ghostly territory where so much human experience comes to be stored".

About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1944, Eavan Boland studied in Ireland, London and New York. Her first book was published in 1967. She has taught at Trinity College, University College and Bowdoin College Dublin, and at the University of Iowa. She is currently Mabury Knapp Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, California. A pioneering figure in Irish poetry, Boland's previous works include "The Journey and other poems" (1987), "Night Feed" (1994), "The Lost Land" (1998) and "Code" (2001). Her poems and essays have appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Kenyon Review and American Poetry Review. She is a regular reviewer for the Irish Times. She divides her time between California and Dublin where she lives with her husband, the novelist Kevin Casey.

Reviews

"Boland has emerged as one of the best poets in Ireland" – Denis Donoghue, New York Review of Books

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