At the age of seventeen, I left school. I went to university

"At the age of seventeen, I left school. I went to university, and I wrote my first attempts at poetry in a room in a flat at the edge of the city." — so remembered Eavan Boland, the Irish poet whose voice became one of the most vital of the late twentieth century. In these words she does not speak with grandeur, but with the quiet honesty of beginnings. They remind us that every journey of spirit, every ascent into art, begins in such modest places — in a young heart seeking expression, in a small room at the margins of the world, in the solitude of a seeker who dares to give form to feeling.

Boland’s story is deeply tied to the struggle of finding a voice as a woman poet in Ireland, a land whose poetic tradition was dominated by male voices and mythic heroes. To begin writing, for her, was not merely to practice art but to enter into a kind of resistance. Her words, born in a flat "at the edge of the city," carried both the isolation and the courage of one who steps beyond the expected path. Her beginnings remind us that the margins, though lonely, are often the birthplace of vision.

There is in this memory the universal truth that youth, with all its uncertainties, is also the fertile ground of destiny. At seventeen, when many are still guided by others’ expectations, Boland chose the path of the poet. In her modest room she began a dialogue with history, with tradition, with silence itself. Just as Emily Dickinson wrote her early verses in seclusion, shaping them in the quiet of an upstairs room, so Boland began her pilgrimage not in acclaim, but in obscurity. And yet, the seeds sown there would grow into poems that spoke for generations of women and for the intimate truths of ordinary life.

Her reflection also reveals the paradox of beginnings: that they seem so small at the time, yet they shape the course of a life. To sit at a table with pen and paper may appear an insignificant act, but in truth it is the forging of a future. The same is true in every art, in every calling. Mozart wrote small, simple melodies as a child that foretold the genius of his symphonies. Van Gogh, in his rough sketches, revealed already the longing that would one day blaze into his masterpieces. Boland’s small room was no less sacred: it was a temple where a young woman began to claim her destiny.

The lesson for us is clear: do not despise small beginnings. Greatness does not burst forth fully formed; it emerges from solitude, from uncertainty, from the courage to begin without knowing the end. That Boland began in a flat at the city’s edge tells us that location does not matter — what matters is the will to create, to give voice, to trust the stirrings of the heart. Each of us has our own “room at the edge of the city,” some hidden place where our truest self begins to speak.

Practical action lies before us: remember your own beginnings. Honor them, however modest they may seem. If you are young, do not wait until you are certain or celebrated to start your work; begin now, even in obscurity. If you are older, remember that what feels small today may echo through the future. Create, write, study, labor — not because the world applauds, but because in the act itself you shape your destiny.

Thus, Boland’s words shine as a testimony: that at seventeen, in solitude, with only a pen and a room, the journey of a poet began. From the edge of the city, she would one day speak to the heart of the world. So too, let each of us begin, wherever we are, with whatever we have. For from the humblest rooms may rise the strongest voices, and from the edges of the city may come the songs that endure for generations.