SOURCE: "Framed in Words," in Kenyon Review, Vol. XIII, No. 3, Summer, 1991, pp. 169-81.

In the following excerpt, Baker discusses Boland's "double stance" toward traditional Irish poetry.

Eavan Boland is only five years younger than Seamus Heaney, and she is the author of six previous books of poetry, but Outside History 1980–1990 is her first collection to be widely distributed in this country. Ontario Review Press did publish its Introduction to Eavan Boland in 1981, and Carcanet distributed here, modestly, her 1987 The Journey. Still, while she clearly has not sprung overnight fully formed and brilliant, this collection may suggest so to an American audience. She is a splendid, graceful, demanding poet who has been evolving for some time, having published her first book, New Territory, in 1967.

I have been interested in showing how [Louis] MacNeice positioned himself outside the literal framework of Ireland and how Heaney situates himself at least partially...