Like any event that becomes legend, it is hard to disentangle fact from fiction in accounts of Paul Muldoon's first meeting with Seamus Heaney. Even Muldoon mistrusts his memory. As he recalls it, he was 16 when a teacher introduced him to Heaney at a poetry reading. He posted Heaney some poems, asking, 'What can I learn from you?' Heaney's response: 'Nothing.'
By 21, Muldoon had published his first book, New Weather, after Heaney showed his work to Faber and Faber's poetry editor. Now, after 10 volumes of poetry, no Irish poet rivals Muldoon for the Nobel laureate's mantle.
Muldoon shares little in common with his former mentor. Muldoon's playful verse - where recondite allusions rub up against colloquial diction, and emotion is undercut by irony - contrasts with Heaney's high seriousness and polish.
Muldoon is equally puckish in person. Boyish despite his 56 years, he has a rotund figure and bouncy walk. He's so soft-spoken and mild-mannered that it's hard to see where the poetic fireworks come from. His lilting Ulster vowels remain despite two decades in the US, where he teaches at Princeton University. With his tweed sports coat and shaggy hair, he is a cross between professor and ageing rock star.
He is perplexed by his reputation for cryptic verse, insisting he is not trying 'to present riddles or conundrums but to engage readers'. Even Helen Vendler, perhaps the preeminent US poetry critic, has suggested he publish with explanatory notes. 'Certainly, I can imagine a circumstance when a few notes would be useful, absolutely - but we'll leave that for someone else to do,' he says.
He doesn't see why poetry is inherently more difficult than film or music. 'We've spent so much of our lives watching movies that we're not conscious of how sophisticated we are at it,' he says. 'In the silent movies, that famous caption, 'Meanwhile, back at the ranch', had to be shot up because there was no understanding that what was happening in one frame was synchronicitous with the next frame, rather than in advanced time. And we've learned a very sophisticated grammar of popular music. Poetry is not something people read, and they say, 'I don't understand this.''
