AWARD WINNING THRILLER WRITER
PAT MULLAN
My POETRY
Welcome...
"Pull up a chair and stay a while. I write thrillers and poetry. Perfectly compatible genres, in case you wondered. Poetry hones the mind and the skill, as well as providing a respite from the intense commitment I make when I'm in the midst of a thriller.
As I stated in the foreword to my last collection of poems, AWAKENING, I get most enjoyment from listening to a poet talk about the written work and the work in progress: why a poem was written, the spark that ignited the vision, the snatch of overheard conversation, the incident that retrieves a past memory, the choice of words and imagery, the simple scene transformed, the need to be a witness. I have separated this work into those categories.
I don’t think that any of my poems need an introduction. My work is simple, accessible, and unencumbered with intellectual reference; you won’t need a degree in English literature to enable you to comprehend it. Galway Kinnell, whose Selected Poems won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, takes issue with what he regards as two major misconceptions about poetry first, that it is unread, and second, that in order to be good, poetry should be unreadable: “After the appearance of the great modernists, Eliot and Pound, when you really had to study poetry in graduate school to understand it, the audience for poetry was cut drastically, so when I started writing in the 50’s, poetry did have a small, specialized following. Since then there has been a dramatic change …”
Even though KNOWING (which will be published this year - 2013) is not a collection of poems, I hope that you find that everything in it has a good, hard sense of poetry.
Please spend some time with me. I'm sure you'll find something to interest you in my place here in cyberspace. Do come back often. Thank you!"
Childhood Hills
This book of poetry is best decribed in the words of poet Dan Masterson: "I found this book of poetry to be beautiful, touching, and approachable. It had me in tears, and laughing, all within the space of a few lines. It covers childhood, early working years, family, social-consciousness, etc. all from a Northern Irish perspective - but highly applicable to any life, anywhere."
AWAKENING
"AWAKENING is a collection of mostly anecdotal poems from incidences in the varied and interesting life of Pat Mullan.
Some of these poems charm the pants off you, 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
E.M.Schorb, award winning author and poet: winner of The Frankfurt Grand Prize in fiction for his novel, Paradise Square; 1973 International Keats Poetry Prize; Verna Emery Poetry Prize for Murderer's Day, his fourth collection of poetry (Purdue University Press). E. M. Schorb's new novel, Fortune Island, was published in June 2009.
James Dickey's Poetry
James Dickey, a poet who raised my consciousness at a time when I was not writing any more, a time when I had abandoned it, a time when the muse had departed. Well, James Dickey has now departed. He died on January 19, 1997. I suppose he was best known for his novel Deliverance but he also wrote about 20 volumes of poetry. James Dickey's Poetry: The Religious Dimension is my elegy to the man.
Knowing
This is not a poetry collection.
Yes, there are poems here. And other writing too: Sicilian Odyssey, a long ‘travelogue’ that sets out to capture my visit to Sicily; in ‘$48 dollars and a battered suitcase’ I get personal, capturing glimpses of my youthful escapade as an Irish emigrant to Canada and the USA.
As I stated in the foreword to my last collection of poems, Awakening, I get most enjoyment from listening to a poet talk about the written work and the work in progress: why a poem was written, the spark that ignited the vision, the snatch of overheard conversation, the incident that retrieves a past memory, the choice of words and imagery, the simple scene transformed, the need to be a witness
Ken Bruen says " Smart, erudite, moving, funny, sad, compassionate - especially loved Splashes ...Mullan is the Celtic Garrison Keillor"