Following 2021’s Howdie-Skelp, Muldoon is in a playful mode. The book is buttressed by long sonnet sequences, at once enigmatic, wise and vitriolically angry, notably in Near Izium, which focuses on the Ukraine war: his most powerful political poem since Meeting the British. Elsewhere he creates sense and nonsense through his unmatched ear for unexpected rhyme, avoiding whimsy by pinpointing instances of tender clarity amid the levity: “We mourn all those poor souls who’ve drowned / because our own inconstant beacons // have led to their running aground.” Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian

RTE Review here