About the Author

Paul Muldoon is the author of nine books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Moy Sand and Gravel (FSG, 2002). He teaches at Princeton University and, between1999 and 2004, was professor of poetry at Oxford University.

Reviews

"Paul Muldoon is a shape-shifting Proteus to readers who try to pin him down . . . Those who interrogate Muldoon's poems find themselves changing shapes each time he does. . .authentically touched or delighted." --Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review "Without question one of the most inventive poets writing in English today." --Andrew Frisardi, The Boston Sunday Globe "Moy Sand and Gravel, Muldoon's ninth book of poems in twenty years, shimmers with play, the play of mind, the play of recondite information over ordinary experiences, the play of observation and sensuous detail, of motion upon custom, of Irish and English languages and landscapes, of meter and rhyme." --Peter Davison, The New York Times Book Review "[Moy Sand and Gravel] demonstrate[s] why [Muldoon] is regarded by many as the most sophisticated and original poet of his generation . . . dazzling." --Mark Ford, The New York Review of Books

Horses are the conveyance Pulitzer Prize winner Muldoon (Moy Sand and Gravel) uses to transport his readers through this new collection. The title refers to an area 30 degrees north and south of the equator in which sailing ships find themselves becalmed and where sailors might throw horses overboard to lighten the load. Yet, there is no stagnation in these poems. Playful language, political subtleties, and proclamations of grief gallop through Muldoon's melee of mythological and contemporary battles-disputes where turtles cover corpses, Bob Dylan returns to Princeton, and violins made from horse heads sing plaintively of destruction. Though his digressions can be difficult, the musicality of his line, as well as his joyous word plays and ironies, is worth the effort. Beginning with a sequence of sonnets whose titles start with the letter B, to a series of instant messages formatted as haiku, to an ending that tributes rocker Warren Zevon, readers are in for a lively ride: "in the afternoon, televangelists,/ push up and bench press with Buddhist and Parsi,/ ten thousand days after which you realized/ the flesh is indeed no more than a bruise." Recommended for contemporary poetry collections.-Karla Huston, Appleton Art Ctr., Appleton, WI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

"Paul Muldoon is a shape-shifting Proteus to readers who try to pin him down . . . Those who interrogate Muldoon's poems find themselves changing shapes each time he does. . .authentically touched or delighted." --Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review "Without question one of the most inventive poets writing in English today." --Andrew Frisardi, The Boston Sunday Globe "Moy Sand and Gravel, Muldoon's ninth book of poems in twenty years, shimmers with play, the play of mind, the play of recondite information over ordinary experiences, the play of observation and sensuous detail, of motion upon custom, of Irish and English languages and landscapes, of meter and rhyme." --Peter Davison, The New York Times Book Review "[Moy Sand and Gravel] demonstrate[s] why [Muldoon] is regarded by many as the most sophisticated and original poet of his generation . . . dazzling." --Mark Ford, The New York Review of Books