Poetry Friday: Paul Muldoon

GalleyCat  reports that Alice Quinn is stepping down as poetry editor of The New Yorker. The poet Paul Muldoon will take her place. Born in Northern Ireland and currently a professor at Princeton, Muldoon won a 2003 Pulitzer for his collection Moy Sand and Gravel. Publishers Weekly called him "the best, most-honored Irish poet of the generation after [Seamus] Heaney."

Until I read the biography at his web site, I didn't know that Muldoon is also the author of several books for children, including Reverse Flannery: Magical Tales of Ireland, The Last Thesaurus, and The Noctuary of Narcissus Batt. Muldoon also wrote the preface for the Modern Classics edition of Irish Folk and Fairy Tales, which was compiled by William Butler Yeats. The first three seem to be from UK publishers only.

My library has a copy of Muldoon's book The End of the Poem, a collection of lectures (given at Oxford) about individual poems by Yeats, Dickinson, Ted Hughes, Heaney, and others. I have to put my name on the hold list, though. Someone beat me to it!

So, Friday's poem is Muldoon's "As," which you can read at the Poetry Foundation, from Moy Sand and Gravel. To see what other verses arise in the kidlitosphere today, look to the Poetry Friday roundup at Sara Lewis Holmes' blog Read Write Believe. Sara is the author of Letters to Rapunzel, a novel for 9 to 12 year olds.

Comments

[Kelly Fineman]

It felt long, his poem, as if he amused himself for one or two stanzas too many in the middle there. But I liked it overall -- particularly when a little nook gave way to a little nookie, and afterwards.

[Susan]

Hey, Kelly. It is pretty long--but amusing.

Do you know David Orr's poetry criticism? He writes (or at least used to) for the NY Times Book Review, and, if you judge by his reviews, doesn't like much contemporary poetry. Somewhere, though, he did recommend Muldoon. Orr went to Princeton, and Muldoon is a professor at ... Princeton.

[Sara]

Interesting news. I always wonder about the politics of the poetry world. And I'm curious to see if his new status causes his UK children's books to be printed here.

[Karen Edmisten]

Thanks for the news update and the amusing poem!

[Liz in Ink]

This is so funny. And promising for the New Yorker. I think the poetry is kind of uneven in there, even if that sacriligious to say...

[Susan]

hey, Karen and Liz. It will be fun to see how (and if) the poetry changes, won't it?

[Steven]

Thanks this is all great news, ill be sure to keep coming back here the latest updates.