Paul Muldoon

Portrait of Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon 1951–
1951Born

Paul Muldoon (b. 1951) is a Northern Irish poet. Muldoon's poetry is known for difficulty, allusion, casual use of extremely obscure or archaic words, understated wit, punning, and deft technique in meter and slant-rhyme. Muldoon has lived in the United States since 1987; he teaches at Princeton University. He held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University for the five-year term 1999-2004.

Until recently Muldoon was often thought of as the second-most-eminent living Northern Irish poet, living in the shadow of his friend Seamus Heaney. Since he won the Pulitzer Prize his reputation has grown: his work clearly stands on its own merits.

In 2003 Muldoon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His other honors include fellowships in the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, and the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry.

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What readers say about Paul Muldoon

  1. On Anseo

    “it's also about the irish langauage and the survival of irish culture. The whole notion of the role being called in irish, Anseo meaning 'Here' yet the irish language is conspiciously absent from the poem. the poet doesn't speak it and neither does Ward who's fighting for a united ireland. It…”

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Most discussed

  1. Anseo3 comments
  2. The Sightseers2 comments
  3. Cows1 comment
  4. Holy Thursday1 comment
  5. Why Brownlee Left1 comment

All 17 poems

Why Brownlee Left · 1980 · 1 poem
Quoof · 1983 · 1 poem
Quoof or Poems 1968-1998 · 1983 · 1 poem
Meeting the British · 1987 · 2 poems
The Annals of Chile · 1994 · 1 poem
Moy Sand and Gravel · 1 poem
Other poems · 10