'Mussolini Ag Dul Ar Neamh', Gabriel Rosenstock (Critical Essay‪)‬

Poems that matter are those that lodge themselves deep in the subconscious, mattering before one knows it and long after one realizes it. Such poems are often chance finds, and not necessarily those which one was directed to study at school or which are flagged up by critical or media attention. They may be written by a 'major' poet but tucked away in a collection more widely known for other much anthologized poems; or they may be written by someone perceived (fairly or not) as a comparatively 'minor' poet--in which case the poem-that-matters may be tucked even further away from the spotlight. Poetry readers often favour such apparently random-choice poems not in order to defy canonicity (or because the poem itself may do so) but because such poems 'make their own importance', (1) and matter in their own right. But what makes one particular poem matter to an individual reader? It will depend to some extent on the poem's capacity (through its fusion of matter and music) to shake up or even 'spook' us, to knock our 'block' off. The 'point of poetry', according to Paul Muldoon, 'is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away'. (2) Alternatively, a poem may even use a slow fuse to sneak and flare up on us, unexpectedly, repeatedly.