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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SIGHTSEERS, by PAUL MULDOON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: My father and mother, my brother and sister
Subject(s): Oppression; Ireland; Irish
First Line: My father and mother, my brother and sister
Subject(s): Oppression; Ireland; Irish
My father and mother, my brother and sister
and I, with uncle Pat, our dour best-loved uncle,
had set out that Sunday afternoon in July
in his broken-down Ford
not to visit some graveyard-one died of shingles,
one of fever, another's knees turned to jelly-
but the brand-new roundabout at Ballygawley,
the first in mid-Ulster.
Uncle Pat was telling us how the B-Specials
had stopped him one night somewhere near Ballygawley
and smashed his bicycle
and made him sing the Sash and curse the Pope of Rome.
They held a pistol so hard against his forehead
there was still the mark of an O when he got home
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