The Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust is delighted to welcome the Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paul Muldoon, back to Irish shores in 2025, where he will be based at University College Dublin for the Spring semester.
From January 22nd until April 16th he will host a series of discussions entitled How to Read a Poem. The seminar series asks the public to address certain questions such as ‘How do we make sense of the contemporary poem? Are there any strategies we might find helpful?’ Professor Paul Muldoon then leads an open discussion on poems published that same week in literary journals and magazines. All are welcome. The only prerequisite? An open mind.
The How to Read a Poem series will take place in the Museum of Literature Ireland, 86 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, on Wednesdays from 3:30 – 5:30 pm on the following dates:
January 22nd and 29th
February 5th, 19th and 26th
March 5th
April 2nd, 9th and 16th
These are free events, but demand will be high, so please reserve your seat via Eventbrite.
Tickets to all of the dates except the 26th of February are here
Tickets to the event on 26th February are here
Prof. Paul Muldoon will give a reading of his recent poetry on 20th February 2025 in Trinity College Dublin.
He will also give a lecture titled Ferriter’s Cove in University College Dublin, in the Trapdoor Theatre on campus on March 26th, and in the Harty Room of Queen’s University Belfast on April 3rd.
Ferriter’s Cove, will be “A musing upon a number of topics including, but not restricted to, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Pierce Ferriter, factory farming, The Persians of Aeschylus, war crimes by major poets, Thomas Crofton Croker, Carl Jung, the unlikely phenomenon of the frith-sruth or “counter current” in Irish literary translation, Frank Ormsby, Warren Zevon, and, of course, decapitation.” – Paul Muldoon
The booking links for the Trinity College reading and the UCD and Queen’s lectures will be available shortly.