Paul Muldoon was born in June, 1951, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His poetry deals with a wide range of subjects, from the intensely personal, for example his wife’s miscarriage, to the political, notably the Northern Ireland Troubles

Despite his humble beginnings — his father was a gardener and his mother a schoolteacher — he went on to study at Queens University, Belfast. He was tutored by the poet Seamus Heaney and while at University published his first poetry collection, Knowing My Place (1971). He graduated in 1973 and then After graduating he worked for BBC Belfast as a radio and television producer and in 1986 emigrated to the United States and taught creative writing at Princeton, University, New Jersey, where he taught creative writing

Muldoon’s poetry covers wide-ranging subjects, including imaginary encounters between historical figures, e.g. Lord Byron and Thomas Jefferson. He wrote poems that seemed spontaneous and clear at first but have layers of deeper significance .