News Release

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Exhibit, reading to highlight
Irish poetry, Nobel laureates

CHAPEL HILL - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon will read from his most recent work at 6 p.m. Oct. 9 in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Wilson Library.

The reading by Muldoon, one of Ireland's leading poets, will mark the opening of "Nobel Times Four: Yeats, Shaw, Beckett, and Heaney," an exhibit presented by the Rare Book Collection in Wilson through Dec. 31.

The four authors represented - W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney - all won Nobel Prizes for Literature. Works by noted Irish author James Joyce, who was not a Nobel laureate, also will be displayed.

Friends of the Library will sponsor the free, public reading. A contemporary of Heaney's, Muldoon continues the creative trajectory set in motion by Yeats, said Dr. Nicholas Allen, UNC associate professor of English and Irish studies.

"Muldoon is part of a vital tradition that spans the last century," Allen said. "His work is sharp, ironic and knowing, always playing with the reader. His poetry bridges the gap between Ireland and America, and his public readings are highly entertaining, Muldoon brings new sense to the words on the page."

"Nobel Times Four" will showcase the library's vast holdings in modern Irish literature, said Charles McNamara, Rare Book Collection curator, who organized the exhibit with Sarah Fass of the collection staff.

"We have over the past decade made a special effort to develop our collections of 20th-century literature, especially the writings of Irish authors," McNamara said. The collections of works by Yeats, Heaney and Shaw are particularly strong and attract scholars from around the world, he said.
The exhibit will include:

• A first edition of Yeats' first book, "Mosada," of which there are fewer than two dozen known copies.
  
• Shaw's typescript of his play "The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet," with his notations and ownership stamp.
  
• A signed copy of Beckett's "Whoroscope," his first published book.
  
• Heaney's "Night Drive," with the poet's handwritten versions of each poem opposite its printed page.

The exhibit also will include a portrait of Yeats, circa 1907, by artist Augustus John. Dr. Townsend Ludington, Boshamer Professor emeritus of American studies and English, and his wife, Jane, loaned the portrait for the exhibit. Exhibit hours will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Call (919) 962-1143 for information. For information about the opening and talk, contact Liza Terll (liza_terll@unc.edu or 962-4207).

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(Senior journalism and mass communication major Margaret Hair of Greensboro wrote this release.)

Photo: Poet Paul Muldoon reading before an image of poet Seamus Heaney. Credit: AP photo/John Marshall Mantel. http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/MuldoonReading.JPG

Library contacts: Judith Panitch (919) 962-1301, panitch@email.unc.edu; Dr. Charles McNamara (919) 962-1143, cbmcnama@email.unc.edu.