Back Room 21 : One last brilliant American poet: Michael Donaghy

Michael Donaghy was born in the Bronx to emigrant Irish parents, when the Bronx was the Bronx: he remembered his parents telling him to go and play but keep away from the burning cars. After a university education he moved to England in 1985. His first book Shibboleth was published in 1988 and he went on to garner many awards including the Whitbread Prize. Although in many ways a darling of the establishment his poetry is accessible and filled with wit. Each poem, even those which seem deceptively light, is a product of craft and balance. Each is filled with air and music. He himself was a gifted musician, specialising in Irish traditional music.
Michael Donaghy died of a brain haemorrage in 2004 at the age of fifty.






Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsichord pavane by Purcell
And the racer’s twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell’s chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante’s heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn’t, of course, I’ve fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsichordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-donaghy