The Necessity for Irony

by Eavan Boland (from The Lost Land © W.W. Norton)

On Sundays,

when the rain held off,

after lunch or later,

I would go with my twelve year old

daughter into town,

and put down the time

at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would

lean over tables,

absorbed by

lace, wooden frames,

glass. My daughter stood

at the other end of the room,

her flame-coloured hair

obvious whenever—

which was not often—

I turned around.

I turned around.

She was gone.

Grown. No longer ready

to come with me, whenever

a dry Sunday

held out its promises

of small histories. Endings.

When I was young

I studied styles: their use

and origin. Which age

was known for which

ornament: and was always drawn

to a lyric speech, a civil tone.

But never thought

I would have the need,

as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,

my caustic author

of the past, of memory,—

and of its pain, which returns

hurts, stings—reproach me now,

remind me

that I was in those rooms,

with my child,

with my back turned to her,

searching—oh irony!—

for beautiful things.

Thomas Calder: I hesitate to launch our latest talk by discussing the ending first, but what a beautiful and heartbreaking turn Boland delivers. I’m not sure I have a question really, other than tell me about your first time reading the piece—were you a mother yet? If no, how does your reading of the poem differ now that you are? (There! That’s a question!)

Katie Condon: I read this poem for the first time just a few days after Boland passed away in April of last year. By that point, my son was about two months old and I was constantly some combination of elated by his existence and exhausted by the hours he kept. I couldn’t believe how much newborns needed to eat—it sometimes took all of my effort (often with the help of my Instagram feed) to stay awake while I nursed him. Then I read this poem and the ending bowled me over. It’s the most devastating, moving, and poignant poem about parenthood and time that I’ve ever read. 

After reading the poem, I didn’t feel ashamed of myself for the feedings that I spent looking at my phone instead of at him—not exactly—but I did feel a renewed sense of urgency to be present with him in as many moments, minutes, and hours that I could. I chose “Irony” for February because my son turns one this month. I think of this poem every time I’m compelled to read an article or scroll on my phone while he’s nursing. Sometimes I read the article anyway (maybe other nursing moms understand the occasional need to do this?), but more often than not I remember these last few lines and hold my kiddo’s hand. I’m really grateful for so many of Boland’s poems, but I’m especially grateful for “Irony.”

TC: As a relatively new parent as well I had a similar reaction: that strong sense of urgency to be present, as you so nicely put it. How does Boland pull off this powerful ending? It’s not as if the reader is unaware that the daughter has grown and gone off. Midway through the poem Boland tells readers: “I turned around/She was gone/Grown.” Yet that part doesn’t sock you in the gut like the ending does. Is it because she’s so nonchalant in the previous excerpt but then really opens up to the reader at the end? Is that the source of the poem’s power? 

KC: This is such a good question, because, you’re right, Boland is really forthcoming with the climatic information of the poem pretty early on. That information, though, is given to us matter-of-factly, with a “civil tone.” And the poem itself is highly civil (one could argue unemotional) until the speaker addresses the “spirit of irony” directly. This turn from reportage to apostrophe (talking to something the poet knows can’t talk back) marks a shift in tone from civil to inconsolable. And, it’s worth pointing out, that the speaker prepares us for the tonal shift so that when we arrive there it’s not entirely shocking. Which means that your question still remains: why is the ending so affecting if we knew what was coming all along?

I think that it has something to do with the unedited, unselfconscious syntax and diction. Everything from the colon on is part of a single sentence, but there are so many disruptions of the speaker’s thought and breath that it makes the voice sound like it is heaving, sobbing. There just isn’t the same polish and control as there was earlier in the poem. Moreover, looking at her diction in that last sentence it becomes clear that we’ve moved from the realm of objective reportage to subjective, emotional memory. The speaker berates herself and calls on irony to join in, to “reproach” her. 

Of all of the emotionally loaded language in this last sentence, however, what most affects me is the phrase “my child.” In contrast to the way she characterized her earlier in the poem (“my twelve year old / daughter,”) this phrasing feels like a primal scream, a plea to return to that time, to that memory, to that beautiful child. The grief just breaks me. 

TC: Well shit—your response is as heavy as the poem itself. I guess we’re working backwards on this one. We started with the ending and now I’m thinking about the beginning and the title itself. “Necessity” is an interesting word choice. It seems to suggest complacency is part of the parent/child dynamic, which of course it is. Sometimes—to refer back to your initial response—you’re going to read the article anyway. And that’s fine. In a way the inevitable pain of recognizing that the past is indeed the past adds to the beauty of those lost moments, so long as you have an appreciation for irony—hence its necessity. Or is Boland suggesting something entirely different? Is “necessity” another variation of that primal scream? Is “necessity” itself ironic? Is there no escaping the pain time delivers us? 

KC: We’re in a philosophy class now! 

Both interpretations seem reasonable and applicable to the poem (and to life and parenting). I think you’re right to suggest that complacency is a part of the parent/child dynamic—it seems unavoidable. As much as we might like to, we can’t devote 100% of our attention to our kids. We need to turn away from them to make them dinner, to attend to our day jobs. We have to run errands and shower. The list goes on. There are always lost moments with our kids and we’ll come to grieve those moments, I think. In Boland’s poem, on the other hand, the focus is on time we spend frivolously when we could be really present with our children. She criticizes herself for wasting time searching for pretty baubles when her daughter, the most beautiful thing in her life, was right behind her. 

To me, the speaker of the poem needs irony, needs a darker tone, in order to accurately characterize her grief. She can’t do it using her typical, controlled tone—she tried that already earlier in the poem. We need irony to help us genuinely articulate the injustices of our lives, our own behavior. Without it, we’d be emotionless observers in the face of our past, a nearly impossible feat and, frankly, one that doesn’t seem possible. It certainly wasn’t possible for Boland’s speaker, who thought herself above irony until she found herself calling upon it with an exclamation of grief.

TC: Thanks again Katie for sharing and discussing Boland’s work with me. Dear reader, if nothing else, please remember to keep your baubles in check.