Muldoon's Picnic

About a week ago, on March 9th,  I went to Muldoon's Picnic at the Irish Arts Center, my first event to which I was invited as a blogger! Thank you, Louise.  The Picnic is the creation of  Paul Muldoon, the acclaimed Irish poet who has taught at Princeton for almost three decades.  He has begun staging this event several times a year at The Irish Arts Center. The upside is all the wonderful talent involved.  The downside is that there is no food, kind of bad form for an event billed as a picnic!

The line-up this past Monday included the following:  Paul Muldoon doing a spoken word homage to his wife's shopping habits,  Muldoon's teenage son Asher and Sammy Grob performing songs from their nascent musical "Poesical the Moesical", the black poet and poetry editor of the Harvard Review Major Jackson, the band Wayside Shrines, Irish comic writer Kevin Barry, Michael Cerveris (currently appearing in the Broadway musical "Fun Home") and Loose Cattle.

The joint was packed and a rollicking time was had by all.  Muldoon is a deft hand at juggling acts, including splitting the reading of Kevin Barry's comic murder mystery in 17 short chapters "Ox Mountain Death Song" into two parts, read before and after the intermission. This, for me, was the highlight of the evening.  Barry is a marvelous reader and brought his odd and unusual characters to life in an audacious manner.  I suggest that, in addition to seeking out his books in print("Ox Mountain Death Song" was published in the New Yorker), it would be worthwhile to hunt out podcasts because to hear him read is half the fun.

Major Jackson teaches poetry at the University of Vermont and Bennington but his poetry skips between Vermont where he teaches, Harlem where he grew up and Florida where his wife lives. His poems focus on race and sex and the human condition; his readings fluid and imbued with humor.

The songs performed from "Poesical the Moesical" were far more sophisticated than one would expect from teenagers.  Asher and Sammy had a great patter going that brought to my mind the Rat Pack.  They have an act that is a throwback to that time but simultaneously smart and timely.

Both bands were great fun.  Ceveris and Loose Cattle have a great Cajun feel but the Princeton-based Wayside Shrines with whom Muldoon also performs are pure Hell's Kitchen Irish.

Muldoon didn't put a lot of emphasis on his own poetry, choosing to yield the spotlight to the rest of the performers more often than not but his spoken word paean to a man imprisoned in Asia for trying to satisfy his wife's designer shopping itch was hilarious.

The Irish Arts Center is west of 10th Avenue on 51st Street.  The next one is scheduled for April 13th and will feature Mary Karr. Buy your tickets early.   It is worth the hike.http://www.irishartscenter.org/literature/muldoons_picnic_4_13_15.html