| SELB
Library Service has been keen to develop a link between the
poet and the library in Moy for some time and he himself has
been more than receptive to the idea. He has generously donated
some of his own material to the library and on a recent return
visit to Armagh paid a surprise visit to the library and talked
to the staff there. Last year he suggested that Moy Library
might be an appropriate place to display a bronze head of
himself, which was being produced by the English artist, Fleur
Fitzgerald - and now it has actually happened!
The Chairman of the Library Committee, Plunkett Campbell,
in accepting the bronze said that he was delighted to be in
a position to further cement the relationship between the
library in Moy and one of the area's most famous sons.
He commented "It is obvious from reading Paul Muldoon's
poetry that although he has been away from the area for some
time, it still represents an important ground base on which
he has developed his art. It is interesting to note' he went
on, 'that his latest book of poetry which is due out in the
Autumn, is titled 'Moy Brick and Sand', which is further evidence
of his continuing love for this part of the country."
When Paul came to Queen's University Belfast in 1969, Seamus
Heaney, whom he had met before and who had helped publish
some of his poems, was his tutor. He joined him, Michael Longley,
and a number of other writers in weekly meetings where new
poems were discussed. Among his fellow-students were Medbh
McGuckian, Ciaran Carson and Frank Ormsby. In 1973, while
still at Queens, Faber & Faber published his first volume
of poetry "New Weather".
He has published a number of critically acclaimed volumes
of poetry over the years since then, as well as a series of
literary articles and volumes of criticism. He is currently
Howard G.B. Clark Professor of the Humanities and Creative
Writing at Princeton University where, since 1990, he has
also been the Director of the Creative Writing Program there.
He lives in the United States with his wife, the novelist
Jean Hanff Korelitz, and their two children but comes back
to Ireland as often as circumstances allow.
Paul Muldoon has been awarded the Sir Geoffrey Faber Memorial
Award in 1991, the T. S. Eliot Award for The Annals of Chile
in 1994, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in
Literature in 1996, and, most recently, the Irish Times Irish
Literature Prize for his New Selected Poems.
He is president of the Poetry Society and in May 1999, he
was elected unopposed as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. . |
