(no subject)
I went to an absolutely amazing event in London last night. It was ostensibly a book launch, but a very special one. Safest is Michael Donaghy's latest and last book, published posthumously last month by Picador. Michael died unexpectedly a year ago of a brain haemorrhage, leaving a rend in the fabric of British poetry not easily mended. Michael was by all accounts an amazing man: intelligent, funny, passionate, warmly supportive mentor and bitingly caustic critic. As mentor, teacher, friend and critic, he has touched the lives of so many involved in poetry, both in the UK and all over the anglophone world.
The event last night was a series of readings by Michael's friends, who happen to also represent the best and brightest of contemporary British poetry. Each poet selected one poem to read from Safest, one poem from Michael's "back catalogue" and another poem (not by Michael) which either Michael greatly admired, or which spoke of Michael in some way. Readers included Sean O'Brien, Jo Shapcott, Paul Farley, Don Paterson, Johh Stammers, Greta Stoddart, Eva Salzman and Simon Armitage, as well as Michael's widow, Maddy Paxman.
Interspersed were some videoclips from Michael's digital camera, which were found on Michael's computer after he died (they were hilarious -- like Michael reading John Stammer's Panoramic Lounge Bar upside down, peeping over the top to say in a faux boff voice "innovative!"). The evening finished with a video of Michael performing one of his own long poems. He was an amazing performer, always reciting from memory instead of reading, with finely tuned dramatic gesture and detail.
In the audience was just about everyone involved in the poetry world in the UK. It was impressive, seeing my tribe all gathered in one place like that. Though it did occur to me that should there be a terrorist attack right then, there would be no poetry in Britain for a generation!
Michael was a strident critic of the post-modern avant garde in poetry, though he steered clear of the reactionary posings of the so-called New Formalists. He defended the place of honest sentiment and passion in poetry, as well as the importance of craft and skill, and an acknowledgment that contemporary poetry is inextricably linked to our poetic history and heritage. His own poetry is my favourite kind -- witty, erudite, passionate, beautiful to the ear, mysterious but not incomprehensible. I urge you all to go seek it out.
And here is the poem Simon Armitage wrote and read for Michael Donaghy last night.
The Patent
by Simon Armitage
in memory of Michael Donaghy
Last night in the shed he was working late,
perfecting light,
inventing the light-bulb that lasts and lasts.
He believes in lamps
which as well as giving an instant shine
will illuminate over and over again
and far from being dim, the prototypes
are surprisingly bright,
and functional too, being fused
for domestic use.
But the light-bulb people are up in arms.
They haven't come this far
to be put in the shade, outshone
by a light whose licence they claim to own,
by a lamp they invented themselves,
then shelved.
So they're hitting back with a cunning device
which works in reverse,
which soaks up colours
and light until darkness occurs.
Known as Obscurity Bulbs
these dense, inky blobs
are available in a range of marques
from Evening Murk
to Endless Midnight of Fathomless Depth.
They're very left
field, almost like art,
and the trade-magazines are pushing them hard.
Which leads us straight
to a city, a town, a blotted-out street,
whose residents blink
at the clues in the crossword, squint at the book
they're trying to read.
Although in a garden shed across the road
there's a glint. A man works late
perfecting light,
his hand cupped like some secretive priest
of the ancient past
protecting a flame in the night.
His face in the bulb of glass, like an astronaut.
The event last night was a series of readings by Michael's friends, who happen to also represent the best and brightest of contemporary British poetry. Each poet selected one poem to read from Safest, one poem from Michael's "back catalogue" and another poem (not by Michael) which either Michael greatly admired, or which spoke of Michael in some way. Readers included Sean O'Brien, Jo Shapcott, Paul Farley, Don Paterson, Johh Stammers, Greta Stoddart, Eva Salzman and Simon Armitage, as well as Michael's widow, Maddy Paxman.
Interspersed were some videoclips from Michael's digital camera, which were found on Michael's computer after he died (they were hilarious -- like Michael reading John Stammer's Panoramic Lounge Bar upside down, peeping over the top to say in a faux boff voice "innovative!"). The evening finished with a video of Michael performing one of his own long poems. He was an amazing performer, always reciting from memory instead of reading, with finely tuned dramatic gesture and detail.
In the audience was just about everyone involved in the poetry world in the UK. It was impressive, seeing my tribe all gathered in one place like that. Though it did occur to me that should there be a terrorist attack right then, there would be no poetry in Britain for a generation!
Michael was a strident critic of the post-modern avant garde in poetry, though he steered clear of the reactionary posings of the so-called New Formalists. He defended the place of honest sentiment and passion in poetry, as well as the importance of craft and skill, and an acknowledgment that contemporary poetry is inextricably linked to our poetic history and heritage. His own poetry is my favourite kind -- witty, erudite, passionate, beautiful to the ear, mysterious but not incomprehensible. I urge you all to go seek it out.
And here is the poem Simon Armitage wrote and read for Michael Donaghy last night.
The Patent
by Simon Armitage
in memory of Michael Donaghy
Last night in the shed he was working late,
perfecting light,
inventing the light-bulb that lasts and lasts.
He believes in lamps
which as well as giving an instant shine
will illuminate over and over again
and far from being dim, the prototypes
are surprisingly bright,
and functional too, being fused
for domestic use.
But the light-bulb people are up in arms.
They haven't come this far
to be put in the shade, outshone
by a light whose licence they claim to own,
by a lamp they invented themselves,
then shelved.
So they're hitting back with a cunning device
which works in reverse,
which soaks up colours
and light until darkness occurs.
Known as Obscurity Bulbs
these dense, inky blobs
are available in a range of marques
from Evening Murk
to Endless Midnight of Fathomless Depth.
They're very left
field, almost like art,
and the trade-magazines are pushing them hard.
Which leads us straight
to a city, a town, a blotted-out street,
whose residents blink
at the clues in the crossword, squint at the book
they're trying to read.
Although in a garden shed across the road
there's a glint. A man works late
perfecting light,
his hand cupped like some secretive priest
of the ancient past
protecting a flame in the night.
His face in the bulb of glass, like an astronaut.