What makes someone a poet?

http://www.newstalk.com/What-makes-a-poet

“Today there are no guidelines for what is poetic and what is not, what constitutes a poem and what does not. Poetry is simply letters on a page which make us go ‘that is a poem’. The only certainty we can have is that a great many people through the ages have been hailed as poets and it tends to be by these marking posts that we define what poetry is. Our small island of saints and scholars has proven a fertile ground for the growing of poets and that is as true today as ever before. One of those at the fore of Irish poetry today is Eavan Boland who has proven her worth as a chronicler of Ireland and the Irish time and time again.

Born to a career diplomat and a post-impressionist painter in 1944 Boland’s life was assured to be an interesting one. Following her father’s appointment as ambassador to the UK in 1951 Boland experienced how the Irish were viewed from the outside. The anti-Irish sentiment she felt in London would help to form Boland’s artistic identity and mission as she went on to tell the extraordinary story of ordinary Ireland and the ordinary Irish. With her combination of poetic skill and simple language Eavan Boland has proven that the existential exuberance, angst, and apathy of the everyman is as perfect fuel for poetic verse as the deeds of Odysseus or Beowulf.

Listen back as Susan talks with Eavan Boland about her life as a poet and find out what she thinks the difference is between a poet and someone who writes good poems.