Paul Muldoon @ EIBF

Host Don Paterson made a surprising admission at the start of this event, that he’d been on Paul Muldoon’s Wikipedia page the night before and seen him described as a ‘postmodern poet’, and had edited it out, because he wasn’t sure that he was.

‘What did you put instead?’ Muldoon asked.

‘Northern Irish poet’ said Paterson, to laughter.

This preamble aside, Muldoon set to reading, and his readings were an absolute joy, clearly given by a man who loves poetry. He asked the audience to remember that in watching a film, or a television programme, that there is a lot of visual grammar there that we have learned, and that some people find hard to understand at first – and a poem is the same, but no harder and worth teaching. He expressed a wish for it to be taught more, but also mentioned that things were better in the UK than America, where he’d recently seen that the top story on a news programme was about Baskin Robbins withdrawing 5 flavours. In fact, he recommended either teaching it more or banning it entirely, because the moment it became Class A, everybody would want it! On a sadder note, there was also a reading from work by Edwin Morgan, who had just passed away. The event could have suffered from a mix of emotions, but Muldoon was constantly checking the audience, so managing to balance his readings and talks perfectly to the mood at the time. It was a wonderful event, with the only downside being the number of empty chairs – try and fill one yourself the next time Muldoon comes back, because he’s very much worth seeing. [Keir Hind]