Word on the Street

In this new collection Paul Muldoon goes back to the essential meaning of the term ''lyric'' -a short poem sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. These words are written for music, assuredly, with half an ear to Yeats''s ballad-singing porter drinkers and half to Cole Porter-and indeed, many of them double as rock songs, performed by the Wayside Shrines, the Princeton-based music colle...