The Spring 2012 voyage brought together a host of incredible faculty members on-board the MV Explorer including Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poetry editor at The New Yorker and recipient of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Muldoon, currently a professor of poetry at Princeton University, is teaching multiple courses on poetry this semester, introducing his students to styles and prose around the world.

Students this semester not only had the incredible opportunity to learn poetry from a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, but also met with several distinguished writers in ports around the world. Lauded playwright Dare Clubb strolled with the students to the Teatro Amazonas playhouse in Manaus, formerly-exiled Chinese poet Bei Dao boarded the ship for a student discussion in Hong Kong, and contemporary South African writers Joan Hambidge and Gabeba Baderoon likewise joined the students for an afternoon on the ship in Cape Town.

The semester concluded with an incredibly well-attended poetry reading in the union, featuring the students in Muldoon’s two courses–Creative Writing and Writing in the World’s Poetic Forms–presenting their best work to their fellow students.

Below, you can listen to Paul Muldoon reading his poem BRAID, a collaboration with Ghanaian interport lecturer Sheriff Ghale inspired by the Spring 2012 port of Manaus, Brazil.

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You can also listen to The Winding Road Home, a poem by Jake Palacio, from San Diego State University and a student in Muldoon’s poetry course this semester.

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Click here to read Paul Muldoon’s Bio.

Click here to hear music from interport lecturer Sheriff Ghale.