overshadowed by the beginning of the Troubles, perhaps fostering a
feeling of political impotence rather than ethical responsibility. The
main point of my argument is to readjust this statement by Wills to
say that Muldoonís poetry shies from an essentialist politics in favour
of a critical dis-position and that this is an ethical responsibility. Wills
notes that Muldoon does not seek to bring the issue of redress to
imaginative resolution in the manner suggested by Heaney in his
essays. She reads Muldoon against Heaney as though Heaney is a
master of balance, which in The Redress of Poetry (1995) Heaney, in
the manner of Robert Frost, hopes to be.^8 However, this ignores the
disturbing dis-positions in Heaneyís poetry discussed at length in the
first chapter. More persuasive is the moment when Wills argues that
Muldoonís work provides us with poems of disturbance, of lack of fit
and whose elements are somehow awry. Willsís conclusion regarding
the reading of Muldoon is poignant:
Muldoonís poetry poses redress as a problem ñ it registers the need to balance
[Ö] but worries whether this is possible. In other words it is not that the poems
achieve balance (with its connotations of equilibrium and even stillness), but
that they keep struggling with the problem.^9In view of this comment, how ëanti-prescriptiveí is the poetry and
what implications does this have for the representation of ëIrishí
identity within the poetry? This question will provide a framework for
discussion of Muldoonís poems ëMeeting the Britishí (1987), ëThe
Boundary Commissioní (1980), ëIdentitiesí (1973) and ëThe Mixed
Marriageí (1977). These poems have been chosen as examples of
Muldoonís poetic concern with territorial and ideological borderlines
between identities, and it is necessary to acknowledge that they are
discussed so as to politicize his role as ëthe shy tricksterí poet.^10
The mule-ish effects of the poetry (the mule being a cross breed
conjured as the title for one of Muldoonís collections) has been
explored by Tim Kendall and Clair Wills, who argue that Muldoonian
mule-ishness can be understood in terms of sterility. The mule, as a
8 Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Poetry (London: Faber, 1995).
9 Wills, Reading Paul Muldoon, p.21.
10 Neil Corcoran, ëThe Shy Tricksterí, Times Literary Supplement, 28 October
1983, p.1180.