Poet Muldoon gets the Gilsenan docu-treatment

Just before lockdown, in 2019, Paul Muldoon brought his 'Muldoon's Picnic' tour to the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan. The title ‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ refers to a popular 19th-century New York vaudeville act, which inspired the New York-based poet to begin hosting these carefully-blended evenings of literature and music back in 2014.

Each show on the tour has a bespoke mix of artists from the worlds of music and literature. Paul Muldoon is a global great of contemporary culture who features this week in a new bi-lingual feature documentary from Belfast-based production company Below The Radar TV, directed by acclaimed Mullagh director Alan Gilsenan and produced by Stephen Douds, in which the poet explores life and language in a series of musical collaborations with a stellar array of artists including Paul Simon, Liam Neeson, PJ Harvey, Bono, Ruth Negga, Paul Brady, and Iarla Ó Lionáird.

For the Armagh-born, Pulitzer prize-winner music matters almost as much as poetry, Muldoon sees little difference between a poem and song lyrics: key moments in his creative life, which began with him writing poems in Irish as a schoolboy, are explored by many of the musicians Paul has worked with - in words specially written by him. The unique and innovative format of this film reflects the allusive and playful poetry of Paul Muldoon who narrates this film. Paul’s personal and professional life on both sides of the Atlantic over the course of his working life which began as a radio producer with BBC in Belfast and culminated with his Chair of Poetry in Princeton University, is reflected in the range of musician friends and acquaintances who participate in the telling of Muldoon’s life.

The poet himself said “When the idea of a documentary about my life was first raised, I was concerned that it would follow the conventional pattern of a core interview intercut with lots of staring into the distance and sage and seasoned critical comments from the great and the good. Boresville, in other words. So I was thrilled when Alan Gilsenan fell in with my vision of a film that would have a much less predictable aspect. Thrilled, too, that Below the Radar along with BBC and TG4 were so enthusiastic in their support of our determination to do something out of the ordinary.”

Alan Gilsenan said: "It was a great delight to go on a strange, musical odyssey with Paul Muldoon through his life and his ceaseless imagination - and to capture his collaborations with so many remarkable artists and friends. I'm left with a host of wonderful memories and encounters which I hope have been documented in this film."

Paul Muldoon: Laoithe ‘s Liricí/A Life in Lyrics

TG4 Wednesday 28th December 9.20pm