Frolic and Detour

I get the sense that people really dislike this collection because it is dense with references, and therefore is a challenge to read. I suppose there is some truth to that critique. Perhaps some people find Muldoon's poems pretentious? I don't know. I personally enjoy this poetry for its cadence, metaphor, wordplay etcetera. I look up some of the obscure references as I read, but mostly I just enjoy the poems for their craft.

Could make neither headNor tail of itTo be honest.

An American audience without strong ties to Ireland will likely be lost most of the time. However, if you've grown up with proverbs, you can savor "Position Paper," pp. 101-05, where M. creates humor simply by putting the 1st half of one adage with the ending from another. Instead of hearing that" a watched pot never boils," you get "Don't wash your dirty linen in a watched pot," and so on.

Paul Muldoon is an incomparable wordsmith, whose poetry is a playground for language--wordplay, twisted truisms, everyday life turned inside out. His humor runs like a stream through these poems. Unless you know your Gaelic, however (and your Latin, French, German, etc.), you'll be Googling at a great rate: it just adds to your pleasure in the work of this great Irish-American talent!