MULDOON'S PICNIC to Feature Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Prodigals and More

Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet, former New Yorker Poetry Editor and pop music lyricist Paul Muldoon returns for his eighth season of the critically acclaimed feast of music, storytelling, poetry, and more. The series, which takes place at Irish Arts Center (553 West 51st Street, New York) on February 12, March 12, and April 9, will feature guest appearances by some of the biggest names across the spectrum of arts and letters, including Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose starring performance on HBO's The Deuce is "luminous" and takes the show "to a different level" (The Atlantic); Gary Shteyngart, author of the "supersad, superfunny, superaffecting" (The New York Times) Super Sad True Love Story; poet Monica Youn, deemed by Hyperallergic one of a "handful of poets [in every generation] who challenge the way we think about language and how it is used"; American Irish punk group The Prodigals; and many more.

Tickets for the Muldoon's Picnic are $40 for non-members and $32 for members; they will available on January 9 for members and January 16 for non-members at www.IrishArtsCenter.org or the box office at 866-811-4111.

Muldoon's Picnic has become a staple of New York's cultural diet, a words-and-music jamboree boasting, over the years, appearances from artists and wordsmiths like Laurie Anderson, Jean Butler, Peter Carey, Michael Cerveris, Lisa Hannigan, Yusef Komunyakaa, Colum McCann, Eileen Myles, Joyce Carol Oates, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, and Colson Whitehead.

Paul Muldoon won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2002 collection Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), which also earned him the Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry. His other notable books of poetry include New Weather (1973); Mules (1977); Why Brownlee Left (1980); Quoof (1983); Meeting the British (1987); Madoc: A Mystery (1990); The Annals of Chile (1994), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry; Hay (1998); Horse Latitudes (2006), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; Maggot (2010); and One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (2014). He has won numerous other awards, including the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, and the 2006 European Prize for Poetry. He has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War," and The New York Observer says he is "one of the great readers alive today. His voice alters with every change in tone and he'll often pace around a room, his whole body responding to his intricate rhythms."

Schedule and Featured Special Guests

Monday, February 12 | 7:30 PM

Nollaig Casey (fiddle) and Arty McGlynn (guitar)

Ivan Goff, uilleann pipes

Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress

Fintan O'Toole,The Irish Times columnist, literary editor, and drama critic

John Vanderslice, author of The Last Days of Oscar Wilde

Monday, March 12 | 7:30 PM

The Lost Brothers (Mark McCausland and Oisin Leech)

Lucy McDiarmid, scholar and writer

Pierce Turner, singer-songwriter

Monica Youn, poet

Monday, April 9 | 7:30 PM

Sophie Cabot Black, poet

Andy Fitzpatrick, singer-songwriter

Virginia Heffernan, journalist and cultural critic

The Prodigals: Gregory Grene (button accordion, vocals), Eamon Ellams (drums), Eamon O'Tuama (guitar, vocals), and Ed Kollar (bass, double bass)

Gary Shteyngart, satirical novelist

ABOUT Irish Arts Center

Irish Arts Center, founded in 1972 and based in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, is a national and international home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. We present, develop, promote, tour, and distribute work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually transporting experiences-the results of innovation, collaboration, and the authentic celebration of our common humanity.

Steeped in grassroots traditions, with a commitment to inclusion that dates back to our founding, we provide education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, and an international home for the Irish community to come together and engage with a dynamic global diaspora.

In Spring 2018, we will break ground on a landmark new permanent home, including a state of the art contemporary, flexible performance and arts space for the presentation and development of work across a range of disciplines; a second, intimate performance space-the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre-optimized for the most intimate live music and conversation, recordings, master classes and special events; classrooms and studio spaces for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities; technology to stream and distribute the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; a spacious and vibrant avenue-facing café lobby that will be a hospitable hub for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; and a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos