A fellow festival-goer at the recent Calabash literary festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, enjoyed chatting to a gentle Irish poet called Paul. He told her he ‘dabbled’ in poetry, and she was seconds from asking if he was planning on reading any of his work at the open-mike session.

When Paul Muldoon, the poet in question, came to give his reading, it was soon quite clear that he is, in fact, a famous poet.