Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University P ...

's poem ''Meeting the British'', first published in the 1987 collection of the same name, is an account of

Pontiac's Rebellion Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–176 ...

of 1763 in the aftermath of the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

, presumably written from the perspective of a Native American. The poem is thematically a

post-colonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

one that draws on stylistic aspects from the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

tradition. Written in nine couplets, its language and structure operate on dual levels catering for both 'quick' readings that evoke direct feeling and more deliberated 'slow' readings, which in absorbing an historical sense deeper emphasises timeless temporal presence. Muldoon critic John Redmond suggests that the 'quick' and the 'slow' are 'the most desirable ' when considered together and in relation to one another.

References

British poems Poetry by Paul Muldoon 20th-century Irish literature Poems about diseases and disorders Works about American history Pontiac's War Anti-war works Postcolonial poetry Native Americans in art Fiction about smallpox 1987 poems Irish poems {{poem-stub