Paul Muldoon's Quoof Recitation

Background

• Paul Muldoon was born 1951 in the Moy, village in Northern Ireland. Currently resides in Jersey
• This poem was entitled in his 1983 collection of poems.

Discussion

• Modern sonnet meaning that it has the same form as a sonnet but the meter and rhyme does not fit into the historical convention.
  • most modern writers have written in modern sonnet, most notably Seamus Heaney
  • They thought that the sonnet was too old fashioned. First sonnet in 1580s
  • First stanza is an octave and the second is a sestet.
  • Highly uneven lines and no consistent rhyme scheme.
• However there are appearances of slant rhymes: bottle/settle and English/language
• Quoof as a hot water bottle. Explicitly said in the first line
  • however it is linked to sex at the end of the first stanza and throughout the rest of the poem.
• First stanza is about him going to bed, but paralleled with how his dad used it.
  • however how they go to bed are radically different:
    • dad goes to his childhood settle potentially safe
    • but the speaker goes to a strange bed, maybe the hotel room in NYC
  • likeness in simile: he carried the water bottle as his father did.
    • the structure of the first 6 lines comparing the father and son are also structured the same
  • Going from his father's private device, to a very shared item. The speaker shares the quoof with lots of women.
  • The motif of sex within the poem can also suggest a phallic nature of the word quoof where the verbs like juggle and laid it between us still make sense.
• The change of the word quoof as he moves away, now it is a sword by the end of the first stanza.
• Next stanza signifies a change of direction.
• Exemplifying one of the strange beds, this time in a new place
• From family relationships to a completely new country with a stranger, potentially a prostitute.
• The girl hardly speaks English; alienating language between the two however they are about to perform an intimate act
• Smoulder vs. Yeti (snowman)
• spoor —­ a track or scent
• Quoof is now a word describing sexual desire, however there is no English word to describe it. Has yet to enter the language
• Language and sexuality as alienating
  
• Contrasting images in the first stanza. Son carrying the bottle to a strange bed (wandering), but dad to a safe childhood settle. The son getting a prostitute in New York; foreign land; Prostitute as potentially dangerous.
• Ultimately making the private language, or sexuality public

Onde here, still cute.