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Sunday, June 28, 2009
Muldoonery
A better poet than interviewee, I think.
“Form is a straitjacket in the way that a straitjacket was a straitjacket for Houdini” [The Irish Times, April 19, 2003]. I guess he means that poetry achieves a kind of marvellous escape act from the apparent restrictions of its form, but that’s not what he has said. What he has said invites the reply: ‘so form ... is a prop, is it?’
“The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away” [Princeton University Library Chronicle, Spring 1998]. I assume he means that poetry should fuck with our heads, which is quite right; but this emphasis on the unpleasantry of poetry looks lopsided to the point of masochism. Why would I want to hang out with a bully?
“Words want to find chimes with each other, things want to connect” [Interviewed in Thumbscrew, Spring 1996]. Paul? Meet Entropy. Entropy, Paul. I’ll leave you two together.
Or ... or ... maybe I’m just a sad little pedant? Could that be the truth of it?
Comments
A bit unfair with the last pullquote, fersure. Both in context of interview:
When a willed element enters the equation of form and content it’s always very borderline: once the system, as it were, is in place, you’re wedded to it. But the poem [Yarrow] kept changing, kept releasing, all the time. I believe that these devices like repetition and rhyme are not artificial, that they’re not imposed, somehow, on the language. They are inherent in the language. Words want to find chimes with each other, things want to connect.
and subject:
‘Yarrow’ has a very simple theme, the simplest of all poetic themes: the human struggle with time. The yarrow which overtakes Muldoon’s farm is the outward sign of time’s ultimate victory. We are made aware of this from the very beginning of the poem: “Little by little it dawned on us that the row / of kale would shortly be overwhelmed by these pink and cream blooms, / that all of us // would be overwhelmed..."
Tis a fair point.