Celebrate Irish American Heritage Month with the Irish American Heritage Museum and The Writers Institute as we host an evening with Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Paul Muldoon, as the poet discusses the inspiration of his work, his love of language, and what moves him today.
Described by the Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War," Muldoon was born in 1951 in Portadown, County Armagh, and was raised near The Moy, in Northern Ireland. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father a farm laborer and market gardener. of a group of Northern Irish poets - including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, and Derek Mahon - who gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, Muldoon studied with Heaney as a student at Queen’s University in Belfast.
In 1971, at the age of 19, Muldoon completed his first short collection, Knowing My Place. Two years later, he published New Weather, his first widely reviewed volume of poetry. He is the author of more than 30 collections. In November 2022, Irish President Michael Higgins named Muldoon the ninth “Ireland Professor of Poetry,” an honor bestowed jointly by universities and cultural organizations in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - and a role akin to “Poet Laureate” for all of Ireland. His most recent collection is Howdie-Skelp (2021), named for the slap in the face a midwife gives a newborn baby to wake it up. The book was named a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times, Irish Times, and The Guardian.