MULDOON'S PICNIC

Description

An omnium-gatherum of poetry, prose and music, Muldoon’s Picnic is hosted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War’ (Times Literary Supplement).
The title ‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ refers to a popular 19th-century New York vaudeville show, which inspired the New York based Muldoon to begin hosting these carefully-blended evenings of literature and music back in 2014.
Described by Time Out New York as “a music-and-literature extravaganza,” each show on the tour has a bespoke mix of artists from the worlds of music and literature. Guests such as Michael Longley, Lisa O’Neill, Zadie Smith, and Horslips will join Muldoon for six different evenings of creative and collaborative energy.
Paul Muldoon describes Muldoon’s Picnic as a direct response to that ancient impulse to perform, to share, to make one’s own amusement; “It’s one of our most basic instincts; to listen to a song, listen to a poem. Even in this era when people have their noses stuck in their tablets, it still works.”
The house band for the show is Rogue Oliphant – a collective of musicians and composers including Chris Harford (Three Colors, Band of Changes), Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues), David Mansfield (Bob Dylan, The Alpha Band) and Ray Kubian (Electric Six, Chris Forsyth).
On Bank Holiday Monday 5th August at The Everyman in Cork, contemporary English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer Zadie Smith, Northern Irish novelist and poet Nick Laird, and the ‘Godfathers of Celtic Rock’ Horslips are the special guests.