In ‘The Woman Poet: Her Dilemma’ (1986—7), the Irish poet Eavan Boland argued that women poets were obstructed on the one hand by traditional ideas of femininity and poetry, and on the other by the demands of separatist feminism. In ‘Dilemmas and Developments: Eavan Boland Re-examined’ Sarah Maguire argues that in recent years women poets have clearly achieved greater confidence as a result of changes in their audience. However, the underlying dilemma facing a woman poet — that of the tension between the demands of femininity and the role expected of a post-Romantic lyric poet — continues to remain unresolved.
AdcockFleur (1987) editor, The Faber Book of 20th Century Women's Poetry, London: Faber.
2.
BolandEavan (1986–7) ‘The woman poet: her dilemma’Stand, Winter, pp. 43–9.
3.
BolandEavan (1997) Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time, London: Vintage.
4.
GreerGermaine (1995) Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet, London: Viking.
5.
RichAdrienne (1980) ‘When we dead awaken: writing as re-vision (1971)’ in On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978, London: Virago, pp.33–49.
6.
RumensCarol (1985) editor, Making for the Open: The Chatto Book of Post-Feminist Poetry 1964–1984, London: Chatto & Windus.
