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Selected Poems 1968-2014
“The most significant English-Language poet born since the second world war.” ― The Times Literary Supplement
Selected Poems 1968–2014 offers forty-six years of work drawn from twelve individual collections by a poet who “began as a prodigy and has gone on to become a virtuoso” (Michael Hofmann). Hailed by Seamus Heaney as “one of the era’s true originals,” Paul Muldoon seems determined to escape definition, yet this volume, compiled by the poet himself, serves as an indispensable introduction to his trademark combination of intellectual hijinks and emotional honesty. Among his many honors are the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Shakespeare Prize “for contributions from English-speaking Europe to the European inheritance.” “Among contemporaries, Paul Muldoon, one of the great poets of the past hundred years, who can be everything in his poems―word-playful, lyrical, hilarious, melancholy. And angry. Only Yeats before him could write with such measured fury.” ―Roger Rosenblatt, The New York Times
Selected Poems 1968–2014 offers forty-six years of work drawn from twelve individual collections by a poet who “began as a prodigy and has gone on to become a virtuoso” (Michael Hofmann). Hailed by Seamus Heaney as “one of the era’s true originals,” Paul Muldoon seems determined to escape definition, yet this volume, compiled by the poet himself, serves as an indispensable introduction to his trademark combination of intellectual hijinks and emotional honesty. Among his many honors are the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Shakespeare Prize “for contributions from English-speaking Europe to the European inheritance.” “Among contemporaries, Paul Muldoon, one of the great poets of the past hundred years, who can be everything in his poems―word-playful, lyrical, hilarious, melancholy. And angry. Only Yeats before him could write with such measured fury.” ―Roger Rosenblatt, The New York Times
240 pages, Paperback
Published November 14, 2017
32 people are currently reading
303 people want to read
About the author
Paul Muldoon
159 books111 followersBorn 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 18, 2018
3.75 stars. Love me some Paul Muldoon. This is a great selection, for those new to the poet - a good size/length, and the hardback has a bad-ass cover. He's not new to me, and I actually feel like I've enjoyed his regular collections (like Moy Sand and Gravel) more than this.
October 23, 2021
Muldoon has a reputation as difficult to understand. But after spending time with his poetry by reading this collection of selected poems, I have been converted a someone who loves his play with words and his wide flung references to everything to local Northern Irish terms and places, to reservoirs in Central Massachusetts, and Kyoto, Japan. Muldoon is playful and brilliant. Several of his long poems (one is 30 pages) are included in this collection. My approach was to focus on sections that instantly appealed to me, while the whole context of the poem still evaded me. As a linguist and lover of language, I don't feel that I always have to understand everything in a poem. Here's a segment I loved from his poem "Incantata":
I wanted the mouth in this potato-cut
to be heard far beyond the leaden, rain-glazed roofs of Quito
to be heard all the way from the southern hemisphere
to Clontarf to Clondalkin, to wherever your sweet-severe
spirit might still find a toe-hold
His poems are sometimes silly -e.g. "Errata". He describes nature beautifully - "Redknots" and "Hedgehog". Many refer to his home Northern Ireland - and they can be both whimsical and terrifying at the same time such as his poem "Sightseers" that describes a trip to the first roundabout (rotary or traffic circle) in Northern Ireland, and his uncle's memories of being stopped and terrorized near there by the B-Specials, an auxiliary police force disbanded in 1970.
Muldoon won the Pulitzer in 2003 for his collection Moy Sand and Gravel as well as the 2002: T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist), and in 2003: Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada). He is a native of Northern Ireland, from Moy and area between Tyrone and Armagh. He studied at Queens University Belfast under Seamus Heaney, and is considered one of the youngest members of the Northern Irish poets group.
I wanted the mouth in this potato-cut
to be heard far beyond the leaden, rain-glazed roofs of Quito
to be heard all the way from the southern hemisphere
to Clontarf to Clondalkin, to wherever your sweet-severe
spirit might still find a toe-hold
His poems are sometimes silly -e.g. "Errata". He describes nature beautifully - "Redknots" and "Hedgehog". Many refer to his home Northern Ireland - and they can be both whimsical and terrifying at the same time such as his poem "Sightseers" that describes a trip to the first roundabout (rotary or traffic circle) in Northern Ireland, and his uncle's memories of being stopped and terrorized near there by the B-Specials, an auxiliary police force disbanded in 1970.
Muldoon won the Pulitzer in 2003 for his collection Moy Sand and Gravel as well as the 2002: T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist), and in 2003: Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada). He is a native of Northern Ireland, from Moy and area between Tyrone and Armagh. He studied at Queens University Belfast under Seamus Heaney, and is considered one of the youngest members of the Northern Irish poets group.
March 16, 2017
Challenging, engaging read for a postcolonial graduate seminar. Muldoon stacks the layers thick of allusions--literary, historical, fictional--to compose narratives about the Irish. I enjoyed (no sarcasm!) spending three hours specifically looking at poems like "Cuba," which pairs sex and violence; "Meeting the British," in which Muldoon's speaker appropriates a Native American perspective. Definitely not a "light" read, especially for longer works like "The More a Man Has..." and after reading some secondary texts on Muldoon, I wish this collection had included other poems as well, but it's a good starting point for a reader new to Muldoon (as I was prior to this reading).
May 31, 2018
Despite a few points of connection, I missed far more of this than I “caught onto”. I will not be reading more of his work. I do not know Gaelic and am not familiar with Irish legends—though I researched a few of the cultural references, I was not inspired to continue that activity. But, I am glad that I was exposed to his work. It clearly speaks powerfully to many others.
June 21, 2018
This is my first book of poetry by Paul Muldoon. He has written 12 books but this one pulls from all those different versions so I figured it was best to start here! With 46 years of work I wanted to see what this Irish poet was all about. One the reviews said “began as a prodigy and has gone on to become a virtuoso”. And he had even won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and The Shakespeare Prize! .
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Some of the poems were hard to read because I had to look up so many of the words, so there was quite a bit of learning involved! That is coming from someone that reads all the time, but I do like a good challenge!
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Some of the poems were hard to read because I had to look up so many of the words, so there was quite a bit of learning involved! That is coming from someone that reads all the time, but I do like a good challenge!
March 17, 2018
I wanted to read this because Muldoon is a highly regarded poet, but I have to confess that it didn't quite catch with me. Not every bell, no matter how resonate, rings quite true to all ears I'm afraid.
November 9, 2022
After a promising start, the collection of poems descended into rambling fever dreams mixing personal experiences with historical events and cinematic plots. As a result the poems were for the most part incoherent, and incomprehensible.
May 19, 2025
just not for me - i loved his poems when he read them aloud at a toppings author event, but on the page they just don’t sing quite the same - plus i don’t understand what the hell is going on most of the time!
September 9, 2020
Brushing up on my Paul Muldoon poems for the Irish Lit class.... he has a sestina, too!
December 16, 2020
Excellent collection of Muldoon´s poetry. It´s atmospheric and lovely. My favorite is Turkey Buzzards.
February 26, 2017
Inaccessible, incomprehensible, impenetrable, inscrutable, baffling
Don't want to have to ask for a annotated copy...
Don't want to have to ask for a annotated copy...
Read
December 19, 2016A rich collection of poems that speak in many voices and manifest a variety of moods, from the melancholy to the whimsical and points in between. Muldoon is a master of wordplay and a wonderful companion. —Dennis J. Hutchinson
August 20, 2025
I was rewarded for not reading in chronological order.
I found the 2014 "Cuba (2)" first, then came across the 1980 "Anseo" and an earlier "Cuba." And so it went, and continues to go: proximities multiplying pleasures.
I found the 2014 "Cuba (2)" first, then came across the 1980 "Anseo" and an earlier "Cuba." And so it went, and continues to go: proximities multiplying pleasures.
April 23, 2017
Will treasure "Wind and Tree" forever, but otherwise this collection is a study in watching a career get worse.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews