Irish-born poet gets audience participating

Internationally acclaimed poet Paul Muldoon recited the mixed and matched, nonsensical sayings that comprised his poem "Symposium" before a crowded Brown-Alley Room in Weinstein Hall on Monday, March 30.

"To have your cake is to pay Paul," Muldoon read. "A hair of the dog is a friend indeed."

Students, professors and community members gathered to hear Muldoon read and elaborate on several of his poems and song lyrics.

The English department brought Muldoon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, to the University of Richmond as a part of its Writers' Series. The series is designed to expose students and the community to influential writers of our time.

Muldoon, currently a professor at Princeton University and poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine, was born in Northern Ireland. Muldoon read poems that reflected his Irish upbringing and set it against a larger picture, including a poem, "Cuba," that uses the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union as a backdrop to a young girl's confession in a local parish in his hometown.

"He brushed against me, Father. Very gently." Muldoon had finished the poem, but the audience remained quiet, waiting for him to continue.

"Sometimes they stop a little suddenly," Muldoon joked.

Muldoon engaged the audience members throughout the reading, conversing with them about foreign affairs, checking on their comfort and even welcoming them to join in on the refrain of his poem, "The Loaf." Muldoon also prefaced every piece with clarifications about references that the audience may not be clear on.

Muldon answered any questions the audience had at the end of the reading. The main question the audience members brought up was about the difference between Irish and American poetry.

"I see it as one continuum," Muldoon said. "It's like the hippo and the rhino. They are similar in the abstract but you know one when you see one." We are all influenced by each other and the world culture that spans the spectrum of countries and generations, he said.

For Julia Schuster, a senior taking a creative writing course, the chance to see and hear Muldoon speak was an important addition to her class work. Her class, taught by David Stevens, read two of Muldoon's poems prior to seeing his lecture.

"It really shed some light on his writing," Schuster said. "After hearing him read, I'm more interested to read his work."

Contact reporter Brittany Combs at brittany.combs@richmond.edu