Customer Reviews

Awakening: New and Selected Poems

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AWAKENING
by
PAT MULLAN

Awakening is a collection of mostly anecdotal poems from occurrences in the varied and interesting life of Pat Mullan, the Irish, sometimes American, poet from Connemara. Some of these poems charm the pants off you, as a leprechaun might if the pockets of the pants were filled with gold. I'm thinking of "Reincarnation," where a tobacco-puffing sea captain may have returned as a wagtail named Perky, who
once lived
in this house of ours
we still smell his tobacco
at the bottom of the stairs
And some of them awaken you to the heavy realities of the Twentieth Century and beyond. Here I'm thinking of "Uijongbu," with its Korean setting and Boots, Boots, Boots tramping the reaches of empire. "Uijongbu" is particularly interesting for the rhythmic prosody of its free verse. Indeed, most of these poems are in free verse, expressive, almost conversational, but with an Irish lilt in the voice.
Awakening is filled with very sharable poems. They display the serious mind and generous personality of a poet worth spending time with. Enjoying many a few with Pat Mullan would make for an interesting and poetic afternoon. After such an afternoon, I should undoubtedly wish for another, as I also anticipate PM's next collection of poems.
E.M. Schorb