Two poems: first, Louis MacNeice's "Snow," then, no interval, "History" by Paul Muldoon. Both are Irish; Muldoon seems to draw on the poetic mantra of MacNeice, drawing it out into the self, the two parts of the self, instead of the customary post-war-divided-Ireland interpretation of much mid-century Irish poetry.
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
-Louis MacNeice (from an anthology, I don't have a date)
History
Where and when exactly did we first have sex?
Do you remember? Was it Fitzrow Avenue,
Or Cromwell Road, or Notting Hill?
Your place or mine? Mareilles or Aix?
Or as long ago as that Thursday evening
When you and I climbed through the bay window
On the ground floor of Aquinas Hall
And into the room where MacNeice wrote 'Snow',
Or the room where they say he wrote 'Snow'.
-Paul Muldoon, Why Brownlee Left (1980)
3 comments:
Oh, I'll fight you, Andrew.
I think you could say that the poems have a common theme. MacNeice talks about a world that is different "than we fancy it" while Muldoon seems like he can't take 'fact' seriously. Both poets convey a sort of resentment for the ambiguity of the world/history in which they live.
Ah, but (and I hate context) the context of Muldoon's writing is invariably in the shadow of both MacNeice's and Heaney's. People tended to see Muldoon as the lifetime poet laureate of Northern Ireland, at least when he first published. Poems like this, that lack the earnestness and return-to-the-roots ethos of Heaney demand some version of history less unified. I think what's missing from Muldoon's poetry--especially his poetry about history--is a nostalgia for a time when there were no historical ambiguities. He doesn't have the same my-father-carried-a-spade-and-I-carry-a-pen nonsense going on.
I'm just gearing up for a presentation on Muldoon next Monday. Don't mind me.
It's alright. Since conflict does interest and entertain, I figure I'll just throw anything and everything out there no matter how far off I am.
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