Paul Muldoon speaks out on poetry and rock music

By: Craig Whitney

Posted: 2/13/04

Prior to his reading at the Konover Auditorium on Tuesday night, I spoke with poet Paul Muldoon concerning his views on modern poetry.

Muldoon teaches at Princeton University, and is the author of 25 books of poetry, the latest of which, 2002's "Moy Sand and Gravel," was selected as the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Whitney: In "Hay" you wrote a poem called "Sleeve Notes," and you talk a lot about rock albums that have influenced you and the role they have played in your life. What do you

think that the rock lyric's role is in modern poetry?

Muldoon: I think that the mechanics are different than in writing poetry, in the way that drama and verse are related. They're less akin than one might imagine. That's not to say that some of the best of them don't have a free-standing life. But it's almost accidental, the fact that some of those great lyrics do look like poems. We may favor lyrics that look more like poems and give them undue respect.

Whitney: Since you teach at Princeton, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on what role academia plays in poetry. I know that Frost, for example, was very much an anti-academic, whereas you have other writers who are not. Most poets nowadays teach.

Muldoon: I don't see how anyone could be anti-academic. That's like being anti-Jupiter. In fact I don't believe really that he was. Because as you know, almost everything Frost

said had a particular...

Whitney: It was a cultivation.

Muldoon: It was. What he did distinguish between was in and out-of-door schooling. "It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling to get adapted to my kind of fooling." But he was extremely well-read, he was self-educated, and I'm sure that that was true of many writers who have gone to the academic world. So as far as I'm concerned, [teaching] is ideal. I don't think being in a university is more or less precious than working in a lumber mill. One thing I do know is that while one has to work extremely hard, and that it is extremely tiring to teach, let's face it, it is not nearly as tiring as dealing with lumber. Which is why I hate people who complain about being teachers.

Whitney: Do you think that poetry nowadays is in any kind of, not necessarily decline, but critical situation?

Muldoon: I don't really. I don't think it's any more critical than it was 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago.

Whitney: Do you think, then, that it's a matter when people look at "golden ages" and things like that that it's a retrospective mythologization?

Muldoon: Often. I mean that's not to denegrate or deny the achievements of great poets along the way. Sometimes those years were in people's imaginations. But when was the golden age of American poetry, would you say? Well Robert Lowell would say, "it was when I was around." Maybe it was in some sense. But also around were Berryman, Turrell, Bishop. But there are very good poets around right now. I don't really think it's a problem.