Against Love Poetry: Poems (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For over 20 years, Eavan Boland (b. 1944 in Dublin) has been interweaving themes of the importance of poetry, Irish history, and women's identity. This volume (her ninth book of poetry), which dramatizes conflicts between marriage and freedom ("what is hidden in/ this ordinary, aging human love") could be subtitled "contradictions of a daily love." "Against" overdone "love poetry" ("Let no love poem ever come to this threshold") because it falsifies "the edge of language," she instead seeks "exact patience" and rapport between self and place, man and wife "mated for life." Overcoming her uncertainties, Boland finds relief in a "merciless inventory" that utilizes imagination to transcend computer and moral "codes" ("the code marriage makes of passion"), necessary, fixed things subject to "duty, dailyness, routine." The Yeatsian landscape of her poetry ("salmon-rich/ rivers and birdlife/ and lilac of this island") is the troubled starting point for her search for identity. But to read these poems only as a tour of the Irish countryside is to acquiesce to the "terrible regard" of those who romanticize its "savage acres." Finally, Boland's self-recognition is an expression of an honest spirit that finds strength in "what wears, what endures." For contemporary collections. Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

These poems of an enduring, unromanticized marriage—"Where are the lives we lived / when we were young?"—can be surreptitiously passionate. Boland's loyalty to the plain words that call forth a whole past keeps the peat fires burning decades after they were lit.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393324249
• ISBN-13: 978-0393324242
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #147,723 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Language that Startles, May 9, 2009

By	L.L. Barkat - See all my reviews

I always find it challenging to rate a book of poetry, since a single great poem can make it worth the purchase. That said, I discovered more than a few wonderful poems in this collection. Certain language will stay with me for a long time, like this from the poem "Quarantine," about a couple who died walking north...

"But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her."

Then there is this from "The First Year"...

"the steep inclines
and country silences
of your boyhood,
the orange-faced narcissi
and the whole length of the Blackwater"

And, from "Making Money"...

"see the small boundaries all this will buy
or the poisoned kingdom with its waterways
and splintered locks or the peacocks who will walk
this paper up and down in the windless gardens"

In the end, though I could discuss lines and silences, internal rhymes and themes, this is the only way to explain poetry...to share what startles and wait.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Against Love Poetry, May 23, 2004

By	Anita Brenner "anita_b" (La Canada Flintridge, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

//

This is a unique book of poems by
a woman "married thirty years"
who, if you'll pardon the expression,
tells it like it is.

It's no surprise that
this book, in particular, has
has raised the hackles of those
who prefer women to write
angst-inspired confessionals as opposed to
what we have here -- the truth.

The language, as always, is beautiful.

Two of the poems, "Quarantine" and "Thanked Be
Fortune" are fantastic. Read this book first, and

judge for yourself.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a thoroughly enjoyable book, March 12, 2004

By A Customer

Against Love is an extremely interesting work. As the author states, it is a polemic (confrontational argument), not an essay or balanced account of the subject. It is purposefully designed to push the reader into a confrontatory state regarding the subject of love, especially in the context of marriage/coupling in current U.S. society.
I found Kipnis writing wonderful, witty, intense, and refreshing. She is the first author I have read in a long time that sent me packing off to the dictionary more than once in a book. She is erudite without being a stuffy academic, knowledgable without being pedantic, and humorous without being gross. I see her as having the honesty of a Carol Queen, the political savy and wit of a Molly Ivins or Jim Hightower, the insightful intellect of a Noam Chomsky, and more. This is one of the few books I have read in the last few years that had me laughing out loud in places. She really hits the nail right on the thumb. Regardless of how you feel about the topic or the ideas discussed, her writing alone is worth reading the book.

Of course, I may be biased. Her writing style is similar enough to mine that I felt very much at home with this book, and read it quickly. She does write in a style that is complex, with long sentences (and paranthetical asides). She also has a substantial vocabulary. Her use of style is neither narcissistic nor exhibitionistic, however. Her use of language in her presentation of ideas is pointed and precise, and it is difficult to put the book down once one starts reading it. (I found myself reading it in one sitting.) Despite being divided into chapters, it reads more like one long, flowing discussion.

As far as the actual material, it is not an exhaustive history of marriage and courtship behavior in U.S. society. It is a series of observations and arguments exploring the weakness of the concepts of love and marriage as they are viewed today by mainstream U.S. culture. Kipnis connects recent biological research, various social theories, and behavior reported by people in therapy to weave her arguments. She does address some historical material in order to provide context for her arguments, but again, it is by no means exhaustive. She does provide enough information, however, sources cited in the text and a bibliography and reference list, to encourage more in-depth exploration.

It is meant to be a starting point for further exploration and discussion, and offers no surprise happy endings and no panaceas. This is not a book about how to be polyamorous, develop new relationship styles, swing, or live happily alone. It is an intellectual broadside fired at the status quo in order to get people to open up and think about something which is normally not in their conscious awareness, and to question that which is usually mindlessly accepted.