...you find yourself tripping up on some of the repetitive refrains, and quickly become aware that they don't display anything like the full range of inventiveness of his best verse.
With its double-sided title, the latest release from poet, professor and occasional rock guitarist Paul Muldoon, Songs and Sonnets, immediately sets in motion a dizzying dance of definitions.
Muldoon’s own awareness of a changing context is more explicitly the subject of this book than any previous collection. It’s as if, conscious of both literal and virtual surveillance – see “Rita Duffy: Watchtower 2” – the poems try to keep one step ahead...
Mr. Muldoon writes nature poems and urban poems and sex poems; he is at home in every setting....A few of his poems are well-nigh impenetrable. The voltage in his head is not the same as in ours.