Maggot: Poems
Northern Irish poet and New Yorker poetry editor Muldoon’s work is accomplished and deeply witty, but rarely personal or moving. His is a poetry of subterfuge, the self hidden under wild and wily rhymes and puns, distracting the reader with tossed-off tidbits of learning, burning past empathy in a rush of dissonant language. But mortality has a way of deepening beyond the poetic surface. Not surprisingly, Muldoon keeps up his punning ways: the title (also the name of a multipart poem) refers not only to the obvious flesh-devouring insects but also to a whimsical thought. But the book is filled with haunting images of decay and doom, from hares grazing dangerously on a runway to a geisha’s body found on a Japanese mountain. A friend with cancer becomes “sufficient, after your radiotherapy, / to trigger a dirty bomb alert,” but the light tone flies away as the poet feels “Another heart-pang / neither badger nor hedgehog grease may assuage.” Muldoon has recently said that he could give up poetry, but this book suggests it isn’t giving up on him. --Patricia Monaghan