Reading the latest issue of The Poetry Review, I came to an item about Michael Donaghy, in which several poets, including the wonderful Moniza Alvi, relate their memories of him. I thought it might be fun to share mine too, though I didn’t know him well, and in fact only met him once, but his charm and grace won me over completely and we briefly corresponded. I was teaching when I found out he had died. It was very sudden and shocking. Recently I shared one of his poems with my poetry society stanza, when we had a St Patrick’s Day meeting to share poems by Irish poets we admired. Donaghy was Irish American, from the Bronx, but moved to London in 1985. As well as a poet, he was a musician.
I met Michael at Manchester Poets, a wonderful group that used to meet in Manchester, and where I met many of the poets I admired intensely, including Douglas Dunn, Vernon Scannell, Norman MacCaig, Wendy Cope, Carol Ann Duffy, and a whole raft of others. The audience at their guest nights was full of published poets, so the readaround was also excellent: John Latham, John Lyons, Steven Waling, Frances Nagle, Alicia Stubbersfield, and many others, me included.
This particular night, Michael was there with Don Patterson. Many of us were pretty cross with Paterson at the time, because the lamented Norman Nicholson’s Collected had recently received an appalling review in Poetry Review, and a lot of poets took exception to its snobbery at Nicholson’s alleged ‘provincialism’. A letter of protest signed by many including Matt Simpson, who encouraged me to sign too, had been sent to the editor, and eventually the review was retracted and Paterson apologised for a hasty review when he was having a bad weekend. There was a question and answer session as part of the reading, and I did warm to Paterson ( I hadn’t read his work up to that point), though I am certain it was Donaghy’s charm and warmth that made me feel that.
Michael himself was incredibly personable, modest, humble, approachable and brilliant. I was impressed by the way he recited his poems rather than read them off the page. Chatting with him later, he said, quite simply, that he had written them so therefore it was easy to learn them, and mostly poets had their book to look at because they lacked confidence in their memory, but if they tried, they could do the same. This is why I read with only one eye on the book and most of my focus on the audience, though I have never mastered his easy grace and confidence – but then he was a musician, and actually treated us to some of his flute playing on the night. Playing tunes he’d committed to muscle memory must have helped him with his reciting.
The poem I shared with my group is ‘The Hunter’s Purse’, which is about a real tune, though Donaghy has fun with it and invents an entire backstory. It is discussed in depth by Don Patterson in a video I found online. Donaghy’s poems are always layered and complex, so always fun to re-read and discover more between the lines. I still have one postcard he wrote to me, wishing me good luck with my poetry, and inviting me to send him some poems to look at. I know of poets who attended his workshops in London, who speak of his generosity and acute critical faculties.
I only met him that once, as I had little free time to go on poetry jaunts, but that one precious time is still treasured, and it has blest my life.
The Titanic disaster affected people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is good to have a poem from an American poet today. It must have been difficult for survivors to give witness statements at the enquiries after the fact.
Angela Topping 