“This is a book of being and becoming. It is about being a poet. It is also about the long process of becoming one,” writes Eavan Boland in the preface of A Journey With Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet. These essays offer a rare view of the intimate and lifelong journey of becoming a poet, a process that “doesn’t stop because the being has been achieved” but that continues and shifts along with the writing. Beginning with personal narratives that offer striking imagery and meditations, Boland places focus on women poets and their work over the last century, including Charlotte Mew and Sylvia Plath, interweaving incisive analysis with testimonies of personal significance. The Irish poet, who died in 2020, pays homage to the craft of poetry and the writers who helped her find her place amongst contemporary literature’s most celebrated poets.
