Paul Muldoon rocks the Poetry Night Series
SRO crowd welcomes a splash of the Irish
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
They gave Paul Muldoon -- poetry editor for The New Yorker, professor at Princeton University, and chair of the Lewis Center of the Arts -- a welcome befitting a rock star. (In fact Muldoon has founded a rock band, Rackett, and he pays tribute to Buddy Holly, the Beatles, and Warren Zevon in various poems.)
A frothy soup of references to medieval Rome, fetal ultrasound, and whatever else crosses his vision, Muldoon's poetry ignited the listeners packed into seats, sprawled on the floor, or standing on any available piece of rug.
Only a few weeks ago, the sonogram of Jean’s womb
resembled nothing so much
as a satellite map of Ireland:
now the image
is so well-defined we can make out not only a hand
but a thumb;
on the road to Spiddal, a woman hitching a ride;
a gladiator in his net, passing judgement on the crowd.
And we were off and running, as the Pulitzer winner, (for Moy Sand Gravel in 2003) led the audience in a romp through time and around the globe.
And much like a rock concert, he had the audience chanting a refrain.
"He's a wordsmith, he likes playing with words," said Coleen Tyler, a local artist, after the reading. "He had great presence . . . even though you have to think about his poetry, he made it understandable."
The Friends of the Library Poetry Night Series takes a hibernian break and returns in March with Juditha Dowd, Laura Boss, and Maria Mazziotti Gillan.
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