Paul Muldoon is planning “to focus less on the writing of poetry than the reading of it” after being announced as the next Ireland Professor of Poetry. Muldoon will be the ninth Ireland Professor of Poetry, taking over from the current holder, Frank Ormsby. The position will run until November 2025.

Muldoon said of his appointment: “To be a poet at all is to be a professor of poetry. In this case, it’s especially gratifying to have the opportunity to formalise that professing, that ‘declaring openly’, of how poetry has been the central spiritual practice of my life.

“In the course of the next three years I hope to focus less on the writing of poetry than the reading of it. At Queen’s University, Belfast, for example, I’ll be leading discussions on How To Read a Poem. These discussions will centre on poems published in literary journals and newspapers in the same week as our meeting and will be open to one and all. After 35 years of teaching in the US, I’m looking forward to connecting more immediately with, and contributing to, the cultural life of Ireland.”

Muldoon was born in Co Armagh in 1951 and studied at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the author of 14 full-length collections of poetry. He has won major poetry awards, and served as poetry editor of the New Yorker from 2007 to 2017.

Since 1987, he has lived in the United States. He has also published collections of criticism, children’s books, opera libretti, song lyrics, and works for radio and television and recently he toured Ireland wiith his band Rogue Oliphant.

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN/WRITE OUT LOUD

Background: When McCartney met Muldoon 

Background: Paul Muldoon at Winchester poetry festival