SOURCE: Howard, Ben. Review of Selected Poems: 1968-1987, by Paul Muldoon. Poetry 165, no. 2 (November 1994): 101-05.

In the following review, Howard evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Selected Poems: 1968-1987.

For the Irish poet Paul Muldoon no value is more central to the poet's vocation than that of personal independence. Speaking to Kevin Barry in 1987, Muldoon expressed his belief that “a writer's job is to be an outsider, to belong to no groups, no tribes, no clubs. So far as any of us can, it's to be a free agent, within the state of oneself, or roaming through the different states of oneself” (The Irish Literary Supplement, Fall 1987). And in the fluid interiors of his poems, Muldoon has remained remarkably independent, sailing with poise and grace through perilous waters. Like his forerunner Louis MacNeice, who resisted the claims of Marxism and Catholicism, Muldoon has been his own best navigator...