Safest

by Michael Donaghy

The tragic death of Michael Donaghy last year at the age of 50 left English-language poetry incalculably the poorer. Donaghy was one of our very finest poets, and his metaphysically dense yet emotionally direct verse had won him admirers all over the world. No one demonstrated more eloquently how poetry could engage the whole he believed that a poem should both communicate directly and work at the highest intellectual level. At the time of his death, Donaghy was at work on a new collection, and Safest gathers together all the poems he had decided were worthy of inclusion in that book. It will be no surprise that Donaghy's early death and almost impossibly exacting standards have produced a lean volume; but judged in depth and quality, it's one many times its apparent size. Safest contains work as rich and insightful as anything Donaghy had previously published, although, in its several meditations on being, death and finality it often reads, inescapably, like the work of a man who knew he was writing his last collection. These are poems of great sophistication; fearful, combative and witty -- and in the end, deeply affirmative in their unillusioned wisdom. As the poet/critic Sean O'Brien remarked, Donaghy will come to be seen as one of the representative poets of the age, and Safest will do nothing but affirm that judgment.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Michael Donaghy (May 24, 1954 – September 16, 2004) was an award-winning New York poet and musician, who lived in London from 1985.

poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singl...

poetryfoundation.org/bio/michael-donaghy

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Donaghy’s final collection of poetry, published posthumously, is an emotional read. These poems were left in a folder on his computer desktop in a folder named ‘Safest’, hence the title of the book. His family said that it was the closest they could get to a title the poet chose himself, which I found really touching.

There’s no sense here of a poet past his prime; these works are vibrant and alive and the work of a man at the peak of his powers. Highly recommended.

Exile’s End

You will do the very last thing.
Wait then for a noise in the chest,
between depth charge and gong,
like the seadoors slamming on the car deck.
Wait for the white noise and then cold astern.
Gaze down over the rim of the enormous lamp.
Observe the skilled frenzy of the physicians,
a nurse’s bald patch, blood. These will blur,
as sure as you’ve forgotten the voices
of your childhood friends, or your toys.
Or, you may note with mild surprise,
your name. For the face they now cover
is a stranger’s and it always has been.
Turn away. We commend you to the light,
Where all reliable accounts conclude.

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading these poems – definitely some more than others.
Apart from “Exile’s End” – the poem from a friend’s review that first alerted me to Michael Donaghy and this collection – the poems that appealed most to me, were those set in London (where I live) and presumably around New Zealand (where I come from):

“Poem on the Underground”
“…My new 3D design improves on Beck,
Restoring something of the earlier complexity.
…. I’ve graphed
the vector of today’s security alert
due to a suspect package at Victoria,
to the person under a train at Mill Hill East,
with all the circumstantial stops between. …”

This is how we all make sense of our cities – not by lines on a map, but by the linking of our own experiences and memories through space and time.

“The Moko”
“… Look on these faces tattooed with maeltroms,
Branching fern fronds, with the wave’s own codes.
Observe the cheek spirals – doubly inscribed
tracking the Sun inward to the centre, …”

This is such a vivid description of a Maori Moko (facial tattoo). Parts of this poem (not those quoted here) are repeated in “Fragment” about survivors of a shipwreck (?)also in the South Pacific.
And finally, another London poem, perhaps foreseeing the poet’s own death – but not as close to the end as “Exile’s End”

“The River Glideth Of His Own Sweet Will”
“Who is this buck of eighteen come up the stairs
squinting from his Rough Guide
across the Thames into the late June sun
towards Lambeth, the wheel, the aquarium,

and St Thomas’ Hospital where you lie
in the eighth-floor intensive care unit
wired up to a heart monitor
staring north to Big Ben’s crackled face?

But now the nurse pulls shut the blinds –
Not that you have clocked one another.
What unaided eyes could possibly connect
thirty years across Westminster bridge
through traffic fumes, crowds,
children, career, marriage, mortgage?”

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in a single sitting at a bar. He was one of the good ones.

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

A posthumous collection that was found on the Author's hard-drive after he died. They were kept in a folder labelled "Safest", hence the title of the collection. Some of the pieces resonate but many of them are cold and distanced.