[In Mules Paul Muldoon] is evidently aware that however far he reaches, home is where he starts from, and home rules…. Muldoon turns a cold eye on a land fit for anti-heroes. Here are poems of the revolutionary, the centaur, vacquero, Virgin, stripper, Bearded Woman, merman: a cavalcade of the great reduced by a quiet faith and suburban constrictions into fit subjects for poems of containment. His language is crisp and refreshingly tart, finely expressing the often difficult relations between his parish and the wider world, as well as the world to come. His poems constitute a profound attack on heroic Irishry not entirely undermined by a sneaking belief in its necessity, and enough terse, spry wit to make the most of the contradiction…. He looks to the world beyond while standing firmly in his backyard. It is an honest, unsensational endeavour. But I can't help wondering whether...