#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«

#The way he says “Why? Why would you say that?” still sounds so hurt #john and paul #john lennon #paul mccartney #mccartney a life in lyrics #podcast #quotes #paul muldoon #mclennon #the beatles #get back

[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.

#paul muldoon #irish poetry #pangur ban

[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.

#paul muldoon #hedgehog #poemay #irish poetry #nature poetry #poetry #poem

[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

#paul mccartney #the lyrics: 1956 to the present #paul muldoon #the quarrymen #the beatles #paul mccartney and wings

[holersirup]

Comhghairdeas ó chroí le Paul Muldoon as a cheapadh mar Ollamh Filíochta nua na hÉireann <3

#queue-ness bóthar cailín bainne #paul muldoon

[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

#poem #poetry #Paul Muldoon #Howdie-Skelp #By The Time You Read This #TLS #Times Literary Supplement

[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.

#podcast #a life in lyrics #the lyrics #paul mccartney #paul muldoon

[manwalksintobar]

Anseo // Paul Muldoon

When the Master was calling the roll At the primary school in Collegelands, You were meant to call back Anseo And raise your hand As your name occurred. Anseo, meaning here, here and now, All present and correct, Was the first word of Irish I spoke. The last name on the ledger Belonged to Joseph Mary Plunkett Ward And was followed, as often as not, By silence, knowing looks, A nod and a wink, the Master's droll 'And where's our little Ward-of-court?'

I remember the first time he came back The Master had sent him out Along the hedges To weigh up for himself and cut A stick with which he would be beaten. After a while, nothing was spoken; He would arrive as a matter of course With an ash-plant, a salley-rod. Or, finally, the hazel-wand He had whittled down to a whip-lash, Its twist of red and yellow lacquers Sanded and polished, And altogether so delicately wrought That he had engraved his initials on it.

I last met Joseph Mary Plunkett Ward In a pub just over the Irish border. He was living in the open, In a secret camp On the other side of the mountain. He was fighting for Ireland, Making things happen. And he told me, Joe Ward, Of how he had risen through the ranks To Quartermaster, Commandant: How every morning at parade His volunteers would call back Anseo And raise their hands As their names occurred.

#poetry #Paul Muldoon #Irish poetry #Irish republicanism #occupation #war #boyhood

[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.

#Zoological Positivism Blues #Paul Muldoon #Gabriel Byrne #poem #poetry #audio #p-isforpoetry #Guardian Visuals #Climate change poems #2015 #Carol Ann Duffy #Youtube

[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.

#poetry #glossary #paul muldoon

[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

#my new favourite quote from the podcast #a life in lyrics #paul mccartney #a day in the life #paul muldoon #the beatles #john lennon #quotes #macca being macca

[poem-today]

A poem by Paul Muldoon

Meeting the British

We met the British in the dead of winter. The sky was lavender

and the snow lavender-blue. I could hear, far below,

the sound of two streams coming together (both were frozen over)

and, no less strange, myself calling out in French

across that forest- clearing. Neither General Jeffrey Amherst

nor Colonel Henry Bouquet could stomach our willow-tobacco.

As for the unusual scent when the Colonel shook out his hand-

kerchief: C’est la lavande, une fleur mauve comme le ciel.

They gave us six fishhooks and two blankets embroidered with smallpox.

Paul Muldoon

#paul muldoon #irish poetry #meeting the british #pontiac war #germ warfare

[oscar-wilde-in-america]

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…

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#American Hotel #Catskills #Cooperstown #Fenimore Art Museum #Klinkhart Hall #oscar wilde #Paul Muldoon #Pavilion Hotel #sharon springs

[missedstations]

“A Ruin” - Paul Muldoon

It might have been a gristmill, a dilapidated granary, or grange I first drove by some sixty years ago and, with my little eye, espied through a doorframe the tousled ferns and red-haired dockens of kids my own age sent out to play in the snow, their snowballs so specific in the sprawl. Windowless now, roofless, tucked under the first, sheltering hill of a range that ran all the way to Mexico— a country into which we still hoped to ride hell-for-leather, still hoped to adjourn after the stickup—this ruin betokens not only the slo-mo- mowing of a meadow for a shopping mall but the fate that would befall the many tagged and retagged over those sixty years. The landscape is so marked by change, the bungled peace process, the shoddy bungalows, the wind farms taking us in their stride, so marked by all the turns things have indeed taken for kids now summoned back from playing in the snow, the nettles almost as tall as its dividing wall, a ruin seems the only thing intact.

#Poems #Paul Muldoon #A Ruin

[winchester-burger]

basically a big vibe check

#jurassic park #alan grant #ellie sattler #ian malcolm #billy brennan #john hammond #sarah harding #nick van owen #amanda kirby #paul kirby #robert muldoon #its stupid #but just for funsies anyway

[king-of-the-birds]

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics

Excerpts from an Interview with Justin Richmond, the executive producer of the podcast

[…] My read on it is that after the stress of getting the book together was relieved, they were sort of realizing that they have hours of Paul McCartney being candid in a really special way. It’s not like this was expertly recorded in the studio. It’s not as if he was sitting down to be Paul McCartney of The Beatles to give an official interview about the band. These [recordings] really have the tenor of someone sitting down with a friend and having a leisurely chat about times past. And McCartney’s “times past” happens to be, for him, The Beatles and Wings and a litany of incredible solo work. [...]

The sort of nice thing about this, remember, is that these were conversations that McCartney and Muldoon knew were going to end up in a book. So they were focused, but just like anything else, after a while, they get into the routine and flow of it, and it almost becomes like the mics aren’t recording. They reach a level of familiarity and comfort. […]

What’s one thing that surprised you the most while going through the tapes? 

This is kind of a goofy one, but at one point in the series, you discover that Paul is a dog person and John Lennon is a cat person. And I don’t think there’s anything else that best describes the difference between these two people and the way they relate to each other in life and in art. 

Cats kind of keep you at an arm’s length, right? Like they’re not completely trusting of you. Dogs are a lot more vulnerable emotionally. I think when you sort of look at how these two people lived their lives, it appears to be reified in their music.  

[…] On its face, I think this is a way for him to set the record straight on some things. There’s just certain things about the lyrics that have been misinterpreted over the years. And not just even maliciously, you know. Kind of innocently, even.

#i’m incredibly excited for the podcast #not really for the (presumably little) new information we'll get #but just listening to him speak and getting to him know together with muldoon #it will be around 12h long i believe #paul the white #.• #z #the observers book #paul&john #paulpod