Poet and songwriter Paul Muldoon joins poet/playright Elizabeth Swados to explore the relationship between creativity and mood. For more than a century, artistic genius has been linked in the popular imagination with suffering, mental illness, and untimely death--as though creativity somehow rendered artists unfit for ordinary human life. Swados, who has detailed her own battles with bipolar disorder in print, and Muldoon, who wrote some of the haunting lyrics on Warren Zevon's last CD, reflect on this Romantic idea of artistic creativity. Special thanks to Michael J. Kerpan, a visual arts student from UMass Boston, for providing this video.
Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose collections include *Horse Latitudes* and *The Annals of Chile*, among many others. He is also known for his editing work, having edited numerous poetry anthologies, including *The Best American Poetry 2005* and *The End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures on Poetry*. He currently teaches at Princeton University and is an Honorary Professor in the School of English at the University of St. Andrew.
Elizabeth Swados is a composer and writer whose work has ranged across genres and media. Her many notable projects include the Broadway hit *Runaways*, the Obie Award-winning *Trilogy* which was performed at La Mama, and *Atonement*, a theatrical oratorio which was performed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She has also written novels, non-fiction and children's book. *The One and Only Human Galaxy* is her first collection of poetry.