| This paper examines how and why Paul Muldoon, a Northern Irish poet, transgresses linguistic boundaries in his poems and translates English into his own poetic words.
Muldoon is Irish Catholic, and therefore might be expected to have Irish as his first language rather than English. However, while he feels more Irish than English, he also feels a strong attachment to the richness of the English language, a richness whose diversity and ambiguity correspond to his hybrid Irish and English.
In his poem gThe Right Arm,h Muldoon translates English language into his own poetic words by breaking it, and creates poetry with the imaginative allowances created by his new language. gAislingh springs from his imaginative attempt to cross the limits of language. In gSushi,h he pursues the possibility of imagination and language kindled by word association. gMisfitsh breaks the mold of convention and opens up a new perspective on English poetry.
Muldoon creates new poetry through his overflowing imagination. His poetry is a production of the richness and ambiguity of both the language and his identity, strengthened by recurrent patterns of destruction and creation to transcend the limits of language.
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