Michael Donaghy, Collected Poems
Michael Donaghy Collected Poems. Published by Picador 2015. Paperback.
I read and re-read this complete collection of Michael Donaghy's poems throughout the summer, outside on the garden bench on warm days, at the kitchen table on cooler days. Even when we had visitors to stay I escaped now and again to read some of my favorites.
Donaghy's poems first captivated me when I bought a second hand copy of 'Conjure' published in 2000 so when I read a review of the recently published collection, I went straight out to buy a copy. With an excellent introduction by Sean O'Brien, the three previously published collections, 'Shibboleth', 'Errata' and 'Conjure' are joined by 'Safest' which would have been his newest collection plus a bonus of some uncollected poems.
I find his poetry sometimes hard edged, sometimes yearning, often filmic, darkly humorous, political, prosaic, enigmatic. And it is this last quality that takes me back and back again to Donaghy who died aged only 50 in 2004.
Here is one of Michael Donaghy's poems from 'Conjure' that I particularly like. Is he writing about a spider or something else? Wonderful.
The Messenger
With no less purpose than the swifts
that scrawl my name across the sky,
the hand of an obsessed pianist
quivers inches from my face.
She's anchored so she hangs mid-air
like an angel in a Christmas play.
As fidgety, but tinier, and she's forgot
her only line, Fear not.
With no less purpose,
than her prey, the fritillary,
flicks a wing and swells the Yangtze,
she's spun a filament across my path.
I could no more cross this line
and wreck her morning's work
than graph a plot that brought me
eye to compound eye with her.
I'd worry for her, out so far
on such tenuous connections,
but the crosshairs of the gunsight
are implied in her precision.
Michael Donaghy.
I read and re-read this complete collection of Michael Donaghy's poems throughout the summer, outside on the garden bench on warm days, at the kitchen table on cooler days. Even when we had visitors to stay I escaped now and again to read some of my favorites.
Donaghy's poems first captivated me when I bought a second hand copy of 'Conjure' published in 2000 so when I read a review of the recently published collection, I went straight out to buy a copy. With an excellent introduction by Sean O'Brien, the three previously published collections, 'Shibboleth', 'Errata' and 'Conjure' are joined by 'Safest' which would have been his newest collection plus a bonus of some uncollected poems.
I find his poetry sometimes hard edged, sometimes yearning, often filmic, darkly humorous, political, prosaic, enigmatic. And it is this last quality that takes me back and back again to Donaghy who died aged only 50 in 2004.
Here is one of Michael Donaghy's poems from 'Conjure' that I particularly like. Is he writing about a spider or something else? Wonderful.
The Messenger
With no less purpose than the swifts
that scrawl my name across the sky,
the hand of an obsessed pianist
quivers inches from my face.
She's anchored so she hangs mid-air
like an angel in a Christmas play.
As fidgety, but tinier, and she's forgot
her only line, Fear not.
With no less purpose,
than her prey, the fritillary,
flicks a wing and swells the Yangtze,
she's spun a filament across my path.
I could no more cross this line
and wreck her morning's work
than graph a plot that brought me
eye to compound eye with her.
I'd worry for her, out so far
on such tenuous connections,
but the crosshairs of the gunsight
are implied in her precision.
Michael Donaghy.
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