The Yin and Yang of April

  

April had its mood swings, its ups and downs. It delighted in daily changes of temperature and temperament. It began with April Fools Day and continued to trick us.  Were those snowflakes or drifting petals?  What to wear today?…a warm jacket or closet dive for summer wear.

The cherry blossom made a late arrival and then burst around us with an abundance of bountiful blooms.  The somberness of Lent gave way to the joy and sensual pleasures of Easter.

Dark skies, chilly rain, one day.  The next---bright colors filled our eyescapes---pale lilacs, sunny yellows, vivid reds.  Trees tightly coiled at night, relaxed into frothy green tips the next morning.

We had to become quick change artists, go with the flow, be patient, be ready, slow down, warm up and let April do its thing.

We need April to remind us of the yin and yang energies that pulse in our bodies and surround us in nature.

April did a good job this year.

Hillwood Estate by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

Women Irish Poets



Eavan Boland

The soul of the Irish poet is given to deep thought and lyrical language.  These thoughts have been expressed by many poets whom we know so well and love so much…to name just a few…

Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, the great W.B. Yeats, Sean O' Casey, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan and Seamus Heaney.  However, we seldom can come up with the name of any woman Irish poet and there have been quite enough.  Google the list and be amazed.

I would like to mention just one in this blog…and a contemporary poet at that…Eavan Boland.  She was born in 1944 and has published over twenty volumes of poetry to the present day. 

She has won numerous awards and taught at various universities in the United States and Ireland.  She also has written a prose memoir "Object Lessons" (1995). 

Eavan "takes on the matter of Ireland and the matter of womanhood " in her poetry…neither a small task in my opinion. And she does it "in a radically different tone and texture from the work of her Irish contemporaries."  I could go on…but see for yourself.  She is a treasure.  She writes in a woman's voice.  She writes in an Irish voice. She writes in a contemporary voice.  Hers is a voice worth reading.

 

Photo of Oscar Wilde Statue in Dublin
Kathleen Tyler Conklin