Muldoon, Paul Moy Sand and Gravel: Poems ISBN 13: 9780374214807

Moy Sand and Gravel: Poems - Hardcover

9780374214807: Moy Sand and Gravel: Poems
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Paul Muldoon's ninth collection of poems, his first since Hay (1998), finds him working a rich vein that extends from the rivery, apple-heavy County Armagh of the 1950s, in which he was brought up, to suburban New Jersey, on the banks of a canal dug by Irish navvies, where he now lives. Grounded, glistening, as gritty as they are graceful, these poems seem capable of taking in almost anything, and anybody, be it a Tuareg glimpsed on the Irish border, Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth I, a hunted hare, William Tell, William Butler Yeats, Sitting Bull, Ted Hughes, an otter, a fox, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Joscelyne, un unearthed pit pony, a loaf of bread, an outhouse, a killdeer, Oscar Wilde, or a flock of redknots. At the heart of the book is an elegy for a miscarried child, and that elegiac tone predominates, particularly in the elegant remaking of Yeats's "A Prayer for My Daughter" with which the book concludes, where a welter of traffic signs and slogans, along with the spirits of admen, hardware storekeepers, flimflammers, fixers, and other forebears, are borne along by a hurricane-swollen canal, and private grief coincides with some of the gravest matter of our age.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:
Paul Muldoon is the author of eight previous books of poetry. He teaches at Princeton University and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
HARD DRIVE 

With my back to the wall 
and a foot in the door 
and my shoulder to the wheel
I would drive through Seskinore. 

With an ear to the ground 
and my neck on the block 
I would tend to my wound 
in Belleek and Bellanaleck.

With a toe in the water 
and a nose for trouble 
and an eye to the future 
I would drive through Derryfubble 

and Dunnamanagh and Ballynascreen,
  keeping that wound green. 

UNAPPROVED ROAD  

I

When we came to the customs post at Aughnacloy, as at Cullaville or Pettigoe,

I was holding my breath 
as if I might yet again be about to go 

underwater . . . The fortieth 
anniversary of 1916 had somehow fizzled out, the New Year's Eve attack
on Brookeborough ending in the deaths 

of O'Hanlon and South, while Dev was likely to bring back
internment without trial . . . As we drew 
level with the leveled shack 

I was met by another black-coated, long fellow, though he wore a sky-blue winding-cloth or scarf 
wrapped round his mouth and nose, leaving only a slit for him to peer through. 

II

"In the late fifties I was looking for a place," he nestled his coffee cup on its zarf 
and turned to me, thirty years later, in Rotterdam . . . 
"An ancestral place . . . A place my ancestors knew as Scairbh

na gCaorach." "Scairbh na gCaorach" I chewed on my foul madams, 
"is now better known as 'Emyvale' 
though the Irish name means 'the sheep-steeps' or 'the rampart of rams.' " 

" 'Rampart of rams?' That makes sense. It was the image of an outcrop of
shale 

with a particularly sheer
drop that my ancestors, the 'people of the veil,' 

held before them as they drove their flocks from tier to tier
through Algeria, Mali, and Libya all the way up to Armagh, Monaghan, and
Louth 

with -- you'll like this -- a total disregard for any frontier." 

III 

"Patrick Regan?" A black-coated R.U.C. man was unwrapping a scarf from
his mouth

and flicking back and forth from my uncle's license to his face. 
"Have you any news of young Sean South? 

The last I heard he was suffering from a bad case 
of lead poisoning. Maybe he's changed his name to Gone West?" 
I knew rightly he could trace 

us by way of that bottle of Redbreast
under my seat, that carton of Players, that bullion chest of butter.
I knew rightly we'd fail each and every test 

they might be preparing behind the heavy iron shutters 
even now being raised aloft 
by men carrying belt saws and blowtorches and bolt cutters. 

IV 

As he turned to me again, thirty years later in Rotterdam, the Tuareg doffed his sky-blue scarf "Back in those days I saw no risk
in sleeping under hedges. As a matter of fact I preferred a thorn hedge to a
hayloft 

because -- you'll like this -- it reminded me of the tamarisks
along the salt route into Timbuktu."
He crossed his forearms lightly under his armpits as if he might be about
to frisk

himself, then smiled as he handed me the sky-blue
winding-cloth and a clunking water gourd. 
"it had been my understanding that Scairbh na gCaorach meant 'the
crossing of ewes'

for scairbh means not 'a ledge' but 'a ford' or, more specifically, 'a
shallow ford.' " 

And he immediately set off at a jog trot down an unapproved road
near Aughnacloy or Swanlinbar or Lifford. 

Copyright © 2002 Paul Muldoon

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherFarrar Straus & Giroux
  • Publication date2002
  • ISBN 10 0374214808
  • ISBN 13 9780374214807
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages120
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780374528843: Moy Sand and Gravel: Poems

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780374528843
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004
Softcover

  • 9780571216901: Moy Sand and Gravel

    Gardne..., 2004
    Softcover

  • 9780571215355: Moy Sand and Gravel

    Faber, 2002
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
KuleliBooks
(Phoenix, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Fast Shipping - Safe and secure Mailer. Seller Inventory # 521PY6001RHE

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.64
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Books Unplugged
(Amherst, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0374214808xvz189zvxnew

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.12
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0374214808-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.12
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0374214808

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 21.13
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0374214808

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.74
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0374214808

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 28.91
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
The Book Spot
(Sioux Falls, SD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks84082

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 59.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Muldoon, Paul
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux (2002)
ISBN 10: 0374214808 ISBN 13: 9780374214807
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
BennettBooksLtd
(LOS ANGELES, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.6. Seller Inventory # Q-0374214808

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 58.87
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.13
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds