Paul Muldoon has been awarded the 2017 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In her citation, Carol Ann Duffy, the UK Poet Laureate, described him as follows:

Paul Muldoon is widely acclaimed as the most original and influential poet of the past 50 years and is rightly celebrated alongside Seamus Heaney. His poetry displays a restless playful brilliance, forever searching for new ways to channel his ideas and new language to dress them in. He is ambitious, erudite, witty and musical. He can experiment with form and stand tradition on its head, craft a tender elegy or intimate love poem with equal skill. His work is of major significance internationally - poetry of clarity, invention, purpose and importance which has raised the bar of what's possible in poetry to new heights.