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Irish poet Paul Muldoon to present first Patten Lectures of 2017-18

For Immediate Release Sep 7, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Paul Muldoon, a celebrated Irish poet, professor, scholar, critic, arts activist and translator, will present the first Indiana University Patten Lectures of the 2017-18 academic year on Sept. 12 and 14.

Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon.Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

The author of 12 collections of poetry and the recipient of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Muldoon is the Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. His poems use word play and humor to tackle deadly serious subjects.

His IU Patten Lectures will be:

  • “Sadie and the Sadists: A Reading of New Poems and Song Lyrics,” 7:30 to 9 p.m. Sept. 12, Presidents Hall in Franklin Hall.
  • “The Specter at the Feast: James Joyce’s ‘The Dead,’” 7:30 to 9 p.m. Sept. 14, Presidents Hall in Franklin Hall.

Muldoon was born in Country Armagh, Northern Ireland, and raised near a village called The Moy, which figures in some of his poems. In his 20s he became a producer for the BBC, but he eventually gave up the job to become a writer. He moved to the United States and has taught at Princeton since 1987 and has been poetry editor of The New Yorker since 2007.

The Times Literary Supplement has called Muldoon “the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War.” Roger Rosenblatt, writing in the New York Times Book Review, described him as “one of the great poets of the past 100 years, who can be everything in his poems – word-playful, lyrical, hilarious, melancholy. And angry.”

Muldoon has also edited anthologies of Irish folk tales and published criticism, opera libretti, children’s books, and radio and TV dramas. He is a songwriter and leads a band called Rogue Elephant. He has won numerous poetry prizes and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The William T. Patten Foundation

The William T. Patten Foundation, endowed by a student of the Indiana University class of 1893, provides generous funds to bring to the Bloomington campus for a week people of extraordinary national and international distinction in the sciences, humanities and arts. Past lecturers have included Oscar Arias, Jorge Luis Borges, Wendell Berry, Noam Chomsky, Natalie Zemon Davis, Umberto Eco, Werner Herzog, Julian S. Huxley, Evelyn Fox Keller, Toni Morrison, Martha Nussbaum and Amos Oz.

Inquiries about the Patten Foundation, the Patten Lecture Series and future nominations may be directed to .

Media Contact

William T. Patten Foundation

Indermohan Virk

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