It's a Woman's World Summary

“It’s a Woman’s World” by Eavan Boland focuses on how woman are viewed and underestimated from when civilization began till now.  The poet encourages all women to stand up for their rights.

            In the first stanza of “It’s a Woman’s World” is understood that the way woman are living has not changed throughout history. “Since a wheel first whetted a knife”, this problem has been going on since the wheel was invented. In the second stanza Boland goes on talking about how woman’s lives haven’t changed. “Well, maybe flame burns more greedily and wheels are steadier but we’re the same” portrays the men working in the factories and dealing with the fire. The wheel is the second stanza is more advanced than the wheel mentioned in the first stanza, however the life of a woman is still the same.

“…Who milestone our lives with oversights- living by the lights of the loaf left by the cash register, the washing powder paid for and wrapped, the wash left wet. Like most historic people we are defined by what we forget...” “Milestone” is an event that changes something in your life, in the poem the life of a woman never changes because she never gets any big tasks to do. Woman’s duties in the world are only chores like cleaning and cooking, duties that don’t make history. Woman do their job well but they are only remembered when they forget the loaf of bread, the washing powder, and the laundry left wet. “…by what we will never be: star- gazers, fire- eaters.” A star-gazer is someone that sets up goals for themselves and a fire-eater is someone that takes chances.

In lines 24-36, it shows that has far as history goes woman are at home cooking and cleaning while the men are out fighting the war. “It’s our alibi”, a woman can say that because she wasn’t on the scene of the crime so she cannot get blamed for anything. “When the king’s head gored its basket—“ is the war that’s going on that the men are fighting. Boland puts woman down by saying that all they can do is gossip in lines 35 and 36.

Lines 37-41, illustrates that children are attracted to the fire place just like moth are attracted to flame. Also the hearth is the woman, she brings warmth and love to the house. The illustration in these lines could be understood that the men are making history and they are the role models to the children.

Boland concludes the poem by reassuring men that they do not have to worry, the woman is looking for more she’s just getting a breath of fresh air and she’s not a fire eater, she’s just the friendly neighbor going home. 

Dear Eavan Boland,

I have had the pleasure of reading and discussing your poem with my fellow classmates. I find your piece of work “It’s a Woman’s World” very intriguing. I can relate my mom's life to the different examples you used about how woman are portrayed in life.

In lines 18-20, “Like most historic peoples we are defined by what we forget,” the woman works hard for her family, but they never praise her about it, they only remember when she forget to do things. Like my mom, she is a typical hard-working housewife always cooking, cleaning, and driving me and my siblings around. She puts the family’s needs before herself, yet no one acknowledges the work she does. I speak for myself, that most of the time rather than thanking my mom for always doing things for me, I tend to get upset at my her instead when she has those days where she puts onion in the food, forgets to buy me something I need, or is five minutes late while picking me up from places.

My mom’s role in the family is to keep the house clean and filled with food and to neuter her kids while my dad takes care of the decisions that have to be made and bills that have to be paid. My mom has set goals for herself and has had dreams when she was younger. She wanted to be a nurse, she made an effort, went to school and started working, but once she had her first kid, she put her dreams aside and decided to take care of her children. And now it seems like she forgot about those dreams she once had because she has given up on them. “By what we never will be: star- gazers, fire eaters” everyone has dreams, including woman. Society makes it harder for woman to have a voice and accomplish big dreams they set up for themselves. Although society has a blame in this, I believe woman should take a little blame too, because after watching the speech “Why we have too few women leaders” by Sheryl Sandberg, I realized that woman have to really be devoted to their work in-order to want to keep on going and earning those higher positions and wages.

When you wrote “And it’s still the same: By night our windows moth our children to the flame of hearth not history” in lines 37-41, I pictured the children being excited to come home to a warm house in the middle of the winter when it’s snowing outside.  I can relate that to my mom too, because she is the hearth to the fire place. She brings the love and warmth to the house that we appreciate, while my dad is out making “history” or money to provide for the family.

I thank you for speaking up for woman and after reading your work, I came to conclusion that I will not let others underestimate a woman’s ability. Just like my mom, I have set goals I want to achieve in my life, but unlike my her, I WILL achieve those goals.

Sincerely,

Sali Bunny

poem questions

 - Examples of poetry are song lyrics, psalms,  and poems.  Poetry is a form of art in which you could express your attitudes and emotions.  You have to look deep into the words used in poetry, because it could have multiple meanings. If i were to explain to my friend that I'm reading poetry in my English class, I would tell him/her that I'm reading a text that has a deep meaning to it that I have to really look into and figure out by plugging everything in.
- I would disagree with the statement that poetry is  not popular because everyone has read or used poetry at least once in their lifetime. There are a forms of poetry that are not recognizable, such as songs.
-I don't remember exactly what the first poem I read was, but I remember it was from the book called "A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein . It was a big white book that had a lot of poems from different writers in it. It was back when I was in the first grade, my teacher would take the class to the library and read to us different poem from the book. When I read poetry nowadays the memory of "the big white book." The book doesn't really affect my reading on the poetry I read now though.
-Terms I have learned from my teachers about poetry are meter, rhyme scheme, sonits, limmerick, haiku, stanza, ect. I've learned to take each line and figure out what it means in order to figure out what the poet is writing about.
-Everything I have learned about poetry outside the classroom has been taught inside the classroom as well.
-I have written a few poems for school and a couple for my own reasons. The ones I wrote outside of class were more like song lyrics, people found them funny and creative. Writing a poem is different than reading a poem because when you're reading it, you are trying to feel what others are writing about as when you are writing poems, you write your feelings so you know what you're talking about.