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Tue 12 Dec 2008Tackling the poetry patriarchy
Irish poetry operates in something of a male-dominated culture, but is being a female poet a raison d'être or a clunky categorisation? Fiona McCanncanvasses five well-versed women
'WE AREN'T SUPPOSED to write poems, we are supposed to be in them." It has been 10 years since Eavan Boland made this statement about her gender in an interview in this paper, and more than 40 since she published her first collection of poetry, New Territory, at the age of 22. Boland talks of living in the "ambiguity as a woman poet", yet given societal shifts since this woman poet made her debut, does such a statement have any relevance for a new generation of Irish women poets who were not even born when Boland's New Territorywas staked out in 1967?
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