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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK room full of colleagues, put on the spot
to define something that you usually
assume speaks for itself, before chaos
This is the first occasion in the history of the magazine that Bridgewater Review
has an all-female editorial staff. erupts. It only took me one second to
say, “My definition of feminism is the
The Personal is Political personal is political.”

It has occurred to me many times over
n April of 2015 I chaired a roundtable at the the past two years, since Gloria Steinem
American Conference for Irish Studies on Irish disappointed so many young voters by
urging us to vote for Hillary Clinton
Ipoet Eavan Boland and her powerful collection, and, simultaneously, reminded so many
Domestic Violence. To many, Boland is rivaled only by middle-aged voters why feminism is
Seamus Heaney in her nuanced ability to navigate an essential part of the work we do
every day, that students at Bridgewater
the Irish experience from a personal perspective that State University tend to live lives that
gently and brilliantly overlaps with the Irish national deliberately make the political personal
on a regular basis. Sometimes choosing
gaze. And in the poetic tradition of Heaney, she is to go to college is a political act for our
often quoted as claiming that her poetry is neither students. Sometimes choosing to miss
political nor feminist. Yet, in the wake of the repeal class or settle for a “C” is a personal
choice made to maintain the political
of the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, act of staying enrolled, of slouching
a referendum that will end the constitutional ban toward the Bethlehem of graduation.
on abortion in Ireland, and the tremendous vigor Feminism will always be personal and

of #wakingthefeminists, an Irish movement similar political to me and it will continue to
be the lens through which I best under-
to #metoo, it has become impossible to ignore the stand our students. If nothing else, it has
feminist voice, conscious or unconscious, that informs given me this perspective because it is a
term defined by the pressure it puts on
so much of Irish women’s poetry, particularly works a binary. That pressure has increased
like Boland’s Domestic Violence. exponentially as women enter more
into the political arena in preparation
I was surprised by two moments during for me, domestic violence is not only for the next election cycle. Political
that 2015 roundtable and often find a marring political act but also always struggle has become openly personal
them resurfacing when I teach Boland, one that lays claim, usually to the and the power behind that transition
especially when I consider the ques- detriment of the victim, to any per- carries historical momentum and hope-
tion of whether any kind of Irish art sonal experience thereafter. In effect, fulness, tools that can tear down even
or literature can shirk politics. During I cannot see domestic violence, when- the most rigid of binary oppositions.
the opening remarks, our roundtable ever referenced, as anything less than
discussed the title of the collection, ask- personally political.
ing whether the reference to domestic Toward the end of what turned out
violence could be separated from its to be a fiery debate about the politics
legislative and physical connotations. of poetry, after I argued ferociously
One of my male colleagues argued time and again that Domestic Violence
that we must separate it; that the title is a political and, more importantly,
is more than a personal reference but feminist book, a female colleague yelled
a national imperative and a way for to me from the back of the room, in a
the poet to transcend gender politics resentful tone, “What is your defini-
by speaking to national history. I was tion of feminism, then?” I would say Ellen Scheible is Associate Professor
blindsided by this argument because,
that you have maybe five seconds in in the Department of English.
that moment, standing in front of a

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