PULITZER Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon heads back to the Lakes next month for the Wordsworth Trust's first contemporary poetry reading of the year.

Muldoon is widely regarded as one of the finest poets writing today and is a mesmerising reader of his own work. Born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland he has lived in the United States since 1987. He teaches at Princeton University but recently firmed up his long relationship with the north west by becoming Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lancaster University.

He has been Oxford Professor of Poetry, won numerous poetry prizes and is poetry editor of the New Yorker.

Often drawing on his experiences of growing up in Ireland, his poetry is noted for his great sense of fun and deep love of language as well as his technical flair. His lifelong love of music has culminated in recent work as a rock lyricist, working with Wayside Shrines, a collective of musicians from the Princeton area.

He has published 12 major collections of poetry as well as many smaller works including libretti, children’s books and radio and television drama. His reading marks the publication of a new collection One Thousand Things Worth Knowing.

Wordsworth Trust literature officer Andrew Forster says he's excited to be introducing Paul to a Grasmere audience once again: He said: "Muldoon read for us in 2011, to a capacity audience in St Oswald’s Church, and it was one of my favourite readings in the seven years I’ve been at the trust. His work is challenging and but it’s also thoroughly entertaining. He takes the audience somewhere else."

Paul will read at Grasmere's Daffodil Hotel on Tuesday, May 5 (7.30pm). To book telephone 015394-35544 or visit www.wordsworth.org.uk/attend-events.

He also gives a a reading from his new collection of poems at Lancaster University's Nuffield Theatre on May 6 (6pm).