Yes, Dominic, yes. He is so identifiable. As well as the trademark
rhymes there's a kind of slightly off-the-beat rhythmic signature
that'll extend across two or three or four of the lines, a kind of
clinching snap-shut beat, rather like watching a preying insect
succeeding. I don't mean to be dismissive in that comparison ! I
remember reading a volume of the Irish Gaelic poet Nuala Ni Domnhail
(sp?!) that he had translated and he made her sound so like Paul
Muldoon which I don't think she really is.
The stuff of his I like most is quite early: things like the title
poem of the volume Quoof and piece called Aisling addressed to Heaney.
I like the long 16 page elegy for his friend that opens one of the
books,even though it's very wordy.
There again: he's better than nothing!
2008/5/22 Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]>:
> David Bircumshaw wrote:
>> There's also what will be the title poem of Paul Muldoon's newest collection at:
>>
>> http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3886602.ece
>>
> He really has reached the stage - enviable and admirable - where you
> could take a phrase from any of his poems almost at random and know it
> was him just from that phrase, e.g. "lift off the whole kit / and
> caboodle". Much of his signature's in the rhyming of course - Cu
> Chulainn / squeaky-clean et al.
>
> A little like Ashberry, I admire more than enjoy although there is
> enjoyment in it. The being left wondering what the point of it was,
> I'm not sure whether I enjoy or not. The craft and canniness of
> Muldoon is so often excellent, though; and I suspect there *is* a
> point more often than I myself am able to discern it.
>
> Dominic
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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