One Thousand Things Worth Knowing: Poems

by Paul Muldoon

Another wild, expansive collection from the eternally surprising Pulitzer Prize–winning poet

Smuggling diesel; Ben-Hur (the movie, yes, but also Lew Wallace's original book, and Seosamh Mac Grianna's Gaelic translation); a real trip to Havana; an imaginary trip to the Château d'If: Paul Muldoon's newest collection of poems, his twelfth, is exceptionally wide-ranging in its subject matter―as we've come to expect from this master of self-reinvention. He can be somber or quick-witted―often within the same poem: The mournful refrain of "Cuthbert and the Otters" is "I cannot thole the thought of Seamus Heaney dead," but that doesn't stop Muldoon from quipping that the ancient Danes "are already dyeing everything beige / In anticipation, perhaps, of the carpet and mustard factories."
If this masterful, multifarious collection does have a theme, it is watchfulness. "War is to wealth as performance is to appraisal," he warns in "Recalculating." And "Source is to leak as Ireland is to debt." Heedful, hard-won, head-turning, heartfelt, these poems attempt to bring scrutiny to bear on everything, including scrutiny itself. One Thousand Things Worth Knowing confirms Nick Laird's assessment, in The New York Review of Books , that Muldoon is "the most formally ambitious and technically innovative of modern poets," an experimenter and craftsman who "writes poems like no one else."

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 2014

About the author

Born in Northern Ireland, Muldoon currently resides in the US and teaches at Princeton University. He held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1999 through 2004. In September 2007, Muldoon became the poetry editor of The New Yorker.

Awards:
1992: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Madoc: A Mystery
1994: T. S. Eliot Prize for The Annals of Chile
1997: Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry for New Selected Poems 1968–1994
2002: T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Moy Sand and Gravel
2004: American Ireland Fund Literary Award
2004: Aspen Prize
2004: Shakespeare Prize

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, consider me surprised by how much I enjoyed this. My knowledge of the poet was rather limited; he was interviewed on PBS some time back and Muldoon struck me as a bit glib and self-absorbed. After finishing this volume I can’t report to the contrary but I loved the rich festering language, especially the homage to Heaney. The triptych on the American Civil War was rather intriguing, furrowing unexpected perspectives onto the unresolved convulsion of this democratic experiment.

[World Literature Today]

"These poems constitute an impressive and entertaining performance that, of itself, offers certain satisfactions: wit, humor, invention, technical sophistication—all good things. For some readers, these will be enough; other readers, however, will find too much fancy footwork and showmanship. They will fatigue at the proliferating non sequiturs, the endless inkblots posing as far-ranging associative thought, the picaresque poems like handfuls of pearls left unstrung by an organicism of subject or feeling." - Fred Dings

This book was reviewed in the January 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never been able to figure out why I like Paul Muldoon. He doesn't tend to write about subjects that particularly interest me, and his language isn't always super-accessible. But his poetry continues to engage, no matter what he's writing about, and his latest collection is one of the stronger ones he's written in recent years. "Cuthbert and the Otters" is by far my favorite poem in the collection, as it mourns the death of Seamus Heaney, and the rest are ambitious and diverse in their content. I imagine it would be difficult for Muldoon to outdo himself from some of his past work, but this is a bold and cohesive collection worth returning to.

[Chris Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are familiar with Paul Muldoon's poetry then you know what to expect. Each poem is packed with wordplay. Always thoughtful, and often humorous, in many poems very political, and constantly aware of the tradition and history of language and poetry. Some poems are more densely packed then others, and can be somewhat challenging but are pleasantly capable of yielding to the reader, and encourage an engagement with the words and phrases that is really unmatched. It might be helpful to have google open, I definitely got sent down some interesting threads of history by trying to unpack some of this work, but that is a part of the joy in reading Muldoon's work. And if you don't happen to enjoy those poems, you will find many other short sweet and simple poems here. They all have the same talent for rhythm and rhyme, remarkably natural and fresh, and for words that somehow seem perfect and exact.
In particular with this collection I saw a much stronger sense of the political, and post-colonial (though these threads are in much of his work) then I feel I have seen captured in any other single collection of his, and really appreciated the perspectives he turned. But again, there is still a good variety too.
I would suggest it to anyone that has read and enjoyed Muldoon before, or is even just interested in checking his work out for the first time.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gains upon read, close attention (as all great poetry does)...and what strikes me most about Muldoon's poetry is, at first, the play, the technique, the games but what I am left with is when that drops away for a quick second and the register changes into 'I cannot thole the thought of Seamus Heaney dead." (like Wright's great ending line: "I have wasted my life on nothing.") Or throughout the poems, Anonymous: From "Marban and Guaire" or his beautiful sonnet, "A Dent" and a few others that seem to balance his manic verbal energy with wonder...My first time reading through, I felt as if there was a bit of him repeating himself - upon rereading, I'm glad to be proven wrong.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Muldoon's poetry is idiosyncratic and particularly from contemporary Irish poetry dominated by the Seamus Heaney's naturalism. Muldoon's 20th collection begins with an invocation of Heaney but quickly moves to his more eclectic tastes and focuses and Muldoon packs the collection with wry and ironic wordplay. Muldoon's frames of reference can be dizzying, however, and sometimes the need to keep google nearby (as one may get his classical references but not his contemporary or vice versa) can be alienating some readers. Highly enjoyable.

[Stuart Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. A diverse collection, some great, some perplexing. Crunchy wordplay. Playful poems. Certainly a poet worth exploring in more depth.

[Elizabeth StClair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some have liked this book and poet. It wasn't my cup of tea. I realized early on the poems make references, mostly to things I know absolutely nothing about. Perhaps I would have a better appreciation of the work if I knew what it was talking about! There were a few poems here and there that I enjoyed, but for the most part I was waiting for myself to enjoy the book. I've since finished it, and I'm still waiting.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

"A PILLAR

Of the two on an Elizabethan stage
meant to support the heavens, one's been itemized
as missing since the flit from Shoreditch
left it high and dry
and safe from our cutthroat Doge.
Once it propped up the drunken sailor on a mast

ready with every nod to tumble down,
once obscured a lady in a doublet
yet to be revealed as the long-lost twin
of Starveling or Snug or Sly.
Many an imp from the Forest of Arden
who scaled it with a catapult

or pail of birdlime made from holly bark
to trap a mistle thrush or canary
has returned a confirmed empiric,
extending the use of birdlime to the nether eye
and the bugle hung in an invisible baldric
as a cure for gonorrhea

while poling still across the Thames-Isis.
There we played ducks and drakes
with our cutthroat Dogberry and all those so-and-sos
determined to try
us at the next assizes.
Our conversation about the intrigue

in which the lad dressed as a lady dressed as a lad
who proved the ferret
to your own coney burrow and took such delight
in being singled out as a double-dealing spy
by both Old Gobbo and Lancelot
must have been overheard

by Snug in the shadow of this very pillar...
Its shadow lengthened even as
the sun struggled to raise a beam from the blur
and we fell in with the hue and cry
of men-at-arms on the trail of the old King's player
who stole from house to house

in an effort to put himself beyond the reach
of tub-fast and mercuric sulfide.
Now we take comfort in this one-legged arch
beyond which the sky
is leveling a charge
of which we may never be absolved."

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection of poems author Paul Muldoon mulls the possibilities and meanings of things that could be. In Recalculating, he builds analogies that have resonance just out of reach. An example is Arthritis is to psoriasis as Portugal is to Brazil; War is to Wealth as Performance is to appraisal. The poem Cuba, he paints a picture of life there and assumptions made about life there. The verse: Hopped up though I am on caffeine, I've suffered all my life from post-traumatic fatigue, Even a world-class sleeper like Rip Van Winkle was out of it for only twenty years. The creativity and color of these poems and others featured require the reader to focus without looking for structure so as to glean the meaning and purpose of each one.

[Joseph Sobanski · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

Maybe it's the overuse of Irish dialect, or maybe it's over my head, but this did absolutely nothing for me. Got half way and then decided not to waste any more of my time.

I mean, what even is this? Just for example, here's the first stanza of "Dromedaries and Dung Beetles"

An eye-level fleck of straw in the mud wall
is almost as good as gold...
I've ventured into this piss-poor urinal
partly to escape the wail
of thirty milch camels with their colts

And so on. Paul Muldoon is clearly a talented poet and writer, but this just didn't do it for me.

[Aminko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first book of poetry I've read all the way through. I suspect some of my 3 star rating is due to being a novice of poetry and some due to me not liking the style of Mr. Muldoon's poems. I liked the shorter poems a little more and found some of the themes a little distracted. All in all I am glad I took the time to read this book of poetry since it has broadened by reading circle and peeked my interest in reading more.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very exhaustive collection of Muldoon's obsessions with history, religious struggles, America & all manner of artists.He writes in a style that captures the essential poetry of words & their resounding meanings when allowed to roam in a freedom & a spirit of wonder & mystery. Pretentious, what?!

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should have never attempted to read anything while moving. My level of concentration looms around one star. My move, however, was great, worth five stars. I suspect this book was worth at least four stars. The detractor was the move and really long poems.

[Robert Welbourn · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of poems. Muldoon flits between the simple and elegant and the meandering and seemingly nonsensical. Definitely worth a read, though don't expect it to be easy.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's no Captain Blood

[Galen Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

Totally acknowledging it’s possible I’m too dumb to appreciate his poems, but very few rang true to me.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure I am the target audience for this collection - need to brush up on Irish historical references.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t get in to this at all. Probably a me thing.

[Evelyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Obscure and obtuse symbolism characterize these poems that make little sense and do not resonate with me.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 1 out of 5]

My brain is too set into its ways to accept this jumble of letters as art.

Either that or I'm just not feeling well this month.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh.

[Merissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh