A few weeks ago, I got to see Paul Muldoon read from his new book, Plan B, at this old warehouse in Cork.  There were forty or fifty people there in the sparse room, and it was almost comical — the calculated quirk with which they dressed, women with bright blue corduroy jackets and maroon floor-length skirts, messenger bags embroidered with swallows, men in their forties with blazers and short cropped gelled graying hair, dark glasses, Converse.  It felt so familiar, could have been 1997, felt so Any Art Opening, Any City (minus NY and LA, of course), USA.  A brother and sister — skinny young blonde girl in a tutu and polka dot knee socks and dirty sneakers, her brother with brown hair flopping artfully/carelessly/defiantly into his eyes, sat on the floor cross-legged behind their parents and blamed each other with silent fingers for every cough and whisper.  

The walls were painted cream on the bottom and avocado from about 5’ up to the high high ceiling, and the evening sky through the three large industrial windows was a brilliant darkening blue.  There were tea lights on the windowsills and wine glasses caught and reflected the light.  The floor was dirty — dust coated old hardwood scratched and water stained beyond repair.  

Paul Muldoon sounds like Garrison Keillor, but more human, more likable.  He’s in a rock band called Rackett, comprised of middle aged men.  His hair is wild and curly and to the reading, along with a blazer and tie and slacks, he wore black orthopedic New Balances. When he read, he ditched the microphone and paced along the floor, forward, backward, making eye contact with those of us standing in the front row of the semi-circle around the podium.  He paused occasionally during his poems to clarify terms — after mentioning baby’s breath, for example, he stopped and said, “the little flower,” and his explanations felt warm and did not seem condescending.  

Muldoon, with his little clarifications, reminded me of a Nigerian poet I saw read a few weeks previous.  I was at a book launch for a collection of poetry written by immigrants to Ireland — many from all over Africa, one from Spain, one older gentleman from the US with white sneakers and a fanny pack and a presumably homemade sweatshirt puff-painted with the outline of the little island off Ireland’s coast that he now calls home.  (His wife wore a sweatshirt to match and took a picture of him while he read, and then one of some little Nigerian kids across the room looking bored and cute.  The man’s poem was about the nuns who live in a convent next door, about a little slogan they have when work gets tough: “We’re all we’ve got, so on we go.”  I loved it.  But I digress.)  This Nigerian man took a solid couple of minutes to collect himself on the podium before beginning, and when he finally read, he paused every few lines to punctuate his words with big gestures, acting out the movement of a man jackhammering, even mimicking the laughter of children, which in his big deep voice sounded a little sinister.
 
I went out for drinks after with a few friends heavily involved in Cork’s literary circle.  They had seen this Nigerian man read before, and were critical of him for his slow start, for the selfishness of taking so long when others had yet to read, for the perceived theatrics.  It didn’t feel like cynical showmanship to me— it felt like he was propelled by an earnest and consuming desire to be understood, like that was the only thing he cared about, and like he felt there was a very good chance he was going to fail.