Paul Muldoon "Maggot"

Enjoyed seeing Paul Muldoon earlier today. He clearly loves the role of being the guest. His years as a BBC arts producer means he knows the behind the scenes mechanics only too well. Now he seems to relish the reversal!

I first met him a few years ago, with a recording machine whose batteries died 2 minutes into the piece. We decamped to the hotel hall way while I plugged into a mains socket and we perched on a window ledge. His radio producer instincts kicked in and he reminded me what my first question had been and pretty much said the same answer verbatim.

Today no recording glitches. He read from his new collection "Maggot". It's being published in October. I love hearing him read his poetry. It's pure performance, the word play, the cheeky cleverness, the humour, the puns, the rhythms and rhymes, the trademark Muldoon repitition which he mines for comic effect. 

But behind the easy laughter of a rhyme are life and death issues. Poems about cancer, being a parent, his mother, lovers.

In the brilliantly titled "Balls" he writes about a personal brush with possible testicular cancer. A "sudden outgrowth/On my otherwise even keel" finds him in a doctor's surgery being asked "Please exhale". It wasn't a tumour. 

He apologises to the home audience for calling a poem "The Windshield", rather than windscreen. Years of living state side he says. Anyway, Americans, he says, would think windscreen was sun protection. You can listen to him reading it on the 1st September Arts Extra here.

With Muldoon there is always a weave and turn in our chats. I start up one path and find myself coming back to meet myself and still laughing. He's acting the Maggot and loving it.

"Maggot" is out 7th October published by Faber & Faber.