#Paul Muldoon

[foryouwereinmysong]

Here Today vs Too Many People Paul McCartney about John Lennon some transcribed quotes from the Podcast »Mccartney: A Life in Lyrics«

[poem-today]

A poem by Paul Muldoon

Hedgehog

The snail moves like a Hovercraft, held up by a Rubber cushion of itself, Sharing its secret

With the hedgehog. The hedgehog Shares its secret with no one. We say, Hedgehog, come out Of yourself and we will love you.

We mean no harm. We want Only to listen to what You have to say. We want Your answers to our questions.

The hedgehog gives nothing Away, keeping itself to itself. We wonder what a hedgehog Has to hide, why it so distrusts.

We forget the god Under this crown of thorns. We forget that never again Will a god trust in the world.

Paul Muldoon

[elskanellis]

Hedgehog

Paul Muldoon The snail moves like a Hovercraft, held up by a Rubber cushion of itself, Sharing its secret With the hedgehog. The hedgehog Shares its secret with no one. We say, Hedgehog, come out Of yourself and we will love you. We mean no harm. We want Only to listen to what You have to say. We want Your answers to our questions. The hedgehog gives nothing Away, keeping itself to itself. We wonder what a hedgehog Has to hide, why it so distrusts. We forget the god Under this crown of thorns. We forget that never again Will a god trust in the world.

[krispyweiss]

Book Review: Paul McCartney - “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” (Paperback edition)

Dear sir or madam, you might read Paul’s book. It took decades to write, you should take a look. It’s based on an oeuvre by a man named Mac. He was a Fab and now he is a paperback writer.

That’s great news for the Quarrymen, Beatles, Wings and Paul McCartney fans who were intimidated by the heft - both in weight and price - of 2021’s “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.” The two-volume, $100 coffee-table book is now an affordable ($30), portable read with seven additional songs, including “Day Tripper,” “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Bluebird,” bringing the total number of numbers examined to 161.

And a book like this - a bathroom reader ideal for picking up and thumbing through - works better in this format. Sure, the photos are smaller and their quality is diminished, but these “Lyrics” are accessible anytime and anyplace reading without deep concentration is desired.

And while the music is at least as important to McCartney’s fans as are his words, McCartney himself seems to place more value on the lyrics and the infinite possibilities represented on every blank page.

“Musicians get only 12 notes to work with and in a song, you often use only about half of them,” he says. “But with words, the options are limitless.”

Across nearly 600 pages, McCartney discuses the inspiration for his many songs and the process of composing them with co-writer Paul Muldoon, who puts McCartney’s thoughts into cogent story form and penned a fresh introduction for this reissue.

In that way, “The Lyrics” serves as the autobiography McCartney will never write. For while the former Fab never kept diaries, “What I do have are my songs, hundreds of them, which I’ve learned serve much the same purpose,” McCartney writes in the Forward.

“And these songs span my entire life.”

Which leads to the one big issue with “The Lyrics.” Rather than chronicling McCartney’s artistry by presenting the songs in chronological order - thereby allowing readers to easily see and assess his evolution - the compositions appear alphabetically; from “All My Loving to “Your Mother Should Know,” when 1956’s “I Lost My Little Girl” through to McCartney III’s “Women and Wives” would’ve been vastly more illustrative of the composer’s long and winding road from young Liverpudlian upstart to elder song stylist of the world.

But readers just have to let it be - again, easier to do in this compact presentation - and jet to the bookstore for the latest from McCartney and his temporary secretary Muldoon.

Grade card: Paul McCartney - “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” (Paperback edition) - B+

3/4/24

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Read this issue

By the time you read this I’ll be gone for a newspaper and quart of milk never to return, a half-mowed lawn leading to me as a scroll of silk

once led to the mulberry silkworm. By the time you read this I’ll be gone AWOL in spite of the fact, in terms of domesticity, I’ve outshone

even the heedful trumpeter swan that spends five weeks constructing a nest. By the time you read this I’ll be gone less because of some profound unrest

than my fascination with the Cree and the sandhills of Saskatchewan into which windswept immensity, by the time you read this, I’ll be long gone.

Paul Muldoon’s most recent collection of poems is Howdie-Skelp, 2021

[i-am-the-oyster]

I’ve just listened to the introductory episode of the podcast A Life in Lyrics. It’s going to be an edited version of the tapes that went into making Paul’s Lyrics book. Which is the best thing it could be I think.

Muldoon is doing that awful “poet reading his poetry dramatically” voice in the intro episode, but I’m hopeful that he’ll be talking normally in the conversations.

[the-final-sentence]

Who might have made it big continues to exercise those gazing up from the pit who still fail to recognize her at the two-bit hot dog stand she frequents, wearing a frowsy wig, the one least likely to be a hit of all the girls who might have made it big.

Paul Muldoon, from "Of All the Girls Who Might Have Made It Big"

[hayleylovesjessica]

I received the brand-new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style yesterday, but since it isn't exactly the most fun book in the world to read, I also went out and bought the new collection of poetry by Paul Muldoon, Joy in Service on Rue Tagore. Muldoon is so good! He's the best Irish poet since Seamus Heaney. Some of his poems stand out for their joyous wit, others for their poignant bite, and still others for both their wit and their bite. I highly recommend checking him out.

[allyourprettywords]

"The Mountain is Holding Out," Paul Muldoon

The mountain is holding out for news from the sea and the raid on the redoubt. The plain wont level with me

for news from the sea is harder and harder to find. The plain won’t level with me now it’s non-aligned

and harder and harder to find. The forest won’t fill me in now it, too, is non-aligned and its patience wearing thin.

The forest won’t fill me in nor the lake confess to its patience wearing thin. I’d no more try to second guess

why the lake would confess to its regard for its own sheen, no more try to second guess why the river won’t come clean

on its regard for its own sheen than why you and I’ve faced off across a ditch. For the river not coming clean is only one of the issues on which

you and I’ve faced off across a ditch and the raid on the redoubt only one of the issues on which the mountain is holding out.

[p-isforpoetry]

Zoological Positivism Blues by Paul Muldoon (read by Gabriel Byrne)

Come with me to the petting zoo Its waist high turnstile gate Come with me to the petting zoo We’ll prove it’s not too late For them to corner something new They can humiliate You know the zoo in Phoenix Park Began with one wild boar It’s in the zoo in Phoenix Park We heard the lion roar And disappointment made its mark On the thorn forest floor

I guess we’ll hire two folding bikes They rent them by the day I guess we’ll hire two folding bikes And you’ll meet me halfway Why do orangutans look like They’re wearing bad toupees? The mealworm and the cricket snacks The tender foliage The mealworm and the cricket snacks They’re still stored in a fridge For when the polar bears start back Across the old land bridge

You snuggled up to me at dawn For fear I’d oversleep You snuggled up to me at dawn The tickets are dirt cheap For outings in the carriage drawn

By two Merino sheep So come with me to the petting zoo And we’ll see how things stand Come with me to the petting zoo I’ll learn to take commands I’m sure we’ll find something to do If we’ve time on our hands

Source: Guardian Visuals, 2015

In 2015 actors including James Franco, Ruth Wilson, Gabriel Byrne, Maxine Peake, Jeremy Irons, Kelly Macdonald and Michael Sheen read a series of 20 original poems on the theme of climate change, curated by UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

[foryouwereinmysong]

I just listened to the episode and you're so right op...

»I used to take her out to the country, have long walks. Take her out to Regent’s Park where she would see a duck on the lake and forget that you couldn’t walk on water, so she’d run in and it’d be like a cartoon. That was really nice... And I remember John being very sort of sympathetic to me. I think he warmed to me seeing me with a pet. John was a cat ... guy. He loved his cats.« »And when you say warmed to you...?« »Eh, yeah, I remember, you know, him, I’m just remembering sort of, when he came around and I'd, say, be playing with Martha, I could tell that he … liked it.« »... mhm...«

First of all there really was no objective reason to mention John during the story about Martha at all. And his stuttering when having to explain how he felt John making heart eyes at him playing with his their dog. »I could tell he liked it« ... There's just too much subtext for me to be sane about this.

Side note: At the end of the episode I was a bit displeased with Sir Paul. When he talks about people being praised more for dark / bitter / negative songs than for »silly love songs« he mentions John doing a lot of those and that it often comes from having to put up a shield against life … Well maybe, Paul, John simply had a need to write these kinds of songs, because he felt these negative emotions? He did have problems and he voiced them. I actually thing this is the opposite of a shield, but quite self-revealing. And it’s just as true as love. Pretty sure he didn’t write self-tortured songs just for the fun and recognition.

Anyway ... John loved his cats ...

You can literally hear Paul struggling not to mention John in the Silly Love Songs episode of the podcast and yet he still mentions him several times including in talking about MARTHA…. The way he said John warmed up to me when I played with Martha like… you can tell the other Paul was like.. he wat?… wat does that mean mate?… the obsession was really apparent…

[foryouwereinmysong]

Sir James Paul McCartney: »So you know the holes became… instead of holes in the road, it became a synonym for people.« Paul Muldoon: »Right… absence, kind of…« Sir James Paul McCartney: »No, just assholes.«

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, ep. A Day in the Life

[poem-today]

A poem (translation) by Paul Muldoon

Anonymous: Myself and Pangur

Myself and Pangur, my white cat, have much the same calling, in that much as Pangur goes after mice I go hunting for the precise word. He and I are much the same in that I'm gladly "lost to fame" when on the Georgics, say, I'm bent while he seems perfectly content with his lot. Life in the cloister can't possibly lose it's luster so long as there's some crucial point with which he might by leaps and bounds yet grapple, into which yet sink our teeth. The bold Pangur will think through mouse snagging much as I muse on something naggingly abstruse, then fix his clear, unflinching eye on our lime-white cell wall, while I focus, insofar as I can, on the limits of what a man may know. Something of his rapture at his most recent mouse capture I share when I, too, get to grips with what has given me the slip. And so we while away our whiles, never cramping each other's styles but practicing the noble arts that so lift and lighten our hearts, Pangur going in for the kill, with all his customary skill while I sharp-witted, swift, and sure shed light on what had seemed obscure.

Paul Muldoon

The poem on which this translation is based was written in Old Irish and was probably composed by an Irish monk who was studying at a continental  European monastery.

[versey21]

21st January

A Colossal Glossary by Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon’s career as a poet has included a stint as the prestigious Oxford Professor of Poetry. Normally his work is serious, but he has indulged himself with A Colossal Glossary, in which he finds an entertaining word for each letter of the alphabet and poetically describes it. Out of necessity a long poem, excerpts only follow below but it is well worth checking out in full.

Source: Shutterstock

A Colossal Glossary

The aardvark’s a kind of ant-eater, an “earth-pig” in Dutch,

while abracadabra is a charm much

favoured by alchemists.

…

Yellow or green, chartreuse is a liqueur

distilled, as always, by monks.

…

A jennet might be a jade, in the horse sense.

Soldiers in khaki uniforms tense

when they hear the siren-song of a klaxon,

since it almost always represents a call to action.

…

The oryx, like all gazelles, is thought by lions to wallow

in self-pity. An osier is a type of willow.

…

The rouble and rupee are Russian and Indian coins.

To be scrupulous is to have qualms of conscience,

from ‘scrupulous’, a stone with a cutting edge;

the reed with a razor-sharp blade is a sedge.

…

… The chief

sense of winnow is to fan, to separate the wheat from the chaff,

the sheep from the goats, good from evil.

..

…zilch;

just as a worm may contain an armada, little much,

all the meanings of all the rest

of the words in this book are buried in one, a treasurechest .

This poem may be light hearted, but it is bravura piece of epic wordplay.

[oscarwilde-scholar]

Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs

Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs

Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs, 1882—2022 One could be forgiven for thinking that an article entitled Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs is about Oscar Wilde in Sharon Springs, meaning his lecture there on August 11, 1882—not an unreasonable assumption. But latterly such an conclusion would be only half right, because earlier this year the spirit of Oscar Wilde materialized once more in the small…

[crepesuzette2023]

Listening to it so far I'm loving the sudden flashes of weirdness, such as the link between Eleanor Rigby and Psycho, and Paul's *lifelong* fear of Nivea cream—but mainly it's the pleasure of hearing his voice, the polite interest with which he accepts any (any!) interpretation of his life and lyrics as an intriguing possibility he has never considered before—so secure in his knowledge that his memory vaults are safe and accessible to him alone, and that no vial is small enough to contain the tears he weeps in public (exception: Here Today). And yet, he's human.

it’s here and he’s starting with the coolest song!! :))