Poem

Public Works

Title	Public Works
Author	Paul Muldoon

Instances of Publication

A published appearance of this poem.

Collection/Anthology	Year of Publication	Medium	View Details
The Fifty Minute Mermaid	2007	Print Collection	View Details

Publication Instance Details #782

Collection/Anthology Details

Collection/Anthology	The Fifty Minute Mermaid
Date of Publication	2007
Publisher	The Gallery Press (Ireland)
Page Number(s)	69, 71

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	HR & Environment Displacement/Forced Migration
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland) Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Great Famine (Ireland)
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Na Murúcha i mBun Oibreacha Innealtóireachta
Original Author	Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This sequence of poems, 'Na Murúcha a Thriomaigh', makes use of the international folk tale of the mermaid to construct an allegorical world in which the merpeople have left the water and now live uneasily among humankind on earth. In this poem, the speaker describes the merpeople's affinity for safety and security, leading them to work on vast engineering projects. The speaker describes the fear the merfolk have of an impending 'flood' that could wipe out everything again and alludes to climate change and greenhouse gases in this context. A more literal translation of the Irish title is 'The merfolk engage in works of engineering'. The Great Famine and Irish cultural loss is often understood to be implicit in this sequence of poems.

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