Smith: A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Michael Donaghy

by Don Paterson

'Smith': a reader's guide to the poetry of Michael Donaghy is the first substantial critical work to be written on one of the UK's best-loved poets. Donaghy, a hugely popular, influential and much-loved figure in the UK poetry scene, died tragically early at the age of fifty in 2004. In fifty short essays accompanying fifty of Donaghy's best poems, his friend and editor Don Paterson makes the argument for Donaghy to be recognised as one of the greatest poets of recent years, and author of some of the most powerful, complex, moving and memorable poems to have been written in our lifetime. Unusually for a work of criticism, his commentary combines sharp and witty analysis of Donaghy's poems with biographical sketch and personal reminiscence, setting Donaghy's work in both a literary and a human context. This book coincides with the tenth anniversary of Donaghy's death, and the publication of the new paperback edition of his Collected Poems.

Genres: Essays

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 23, 2014

About the author

Don Paterson (b. 1963) is a Scottish poet and writer. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry, aphorism, criticism, memoir and poetic theory. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, three Forward Prizes, the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Andrews, and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He has long had a parallel career as a jazz guitarist.

He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.

Reviews

[Nick Soper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Don Paterson's collection, Rain, which he dedicates to his friend Michael Donaghy. So I was extremely pleased to find this book discussing some of his friend's best poems.

This is pretty much my perfect format for a poetry book (it seems like this should be an entire category in any poetry section in a bookshop but the only book I've found that feels similar is Alan Bennett's, 6 Poets) because I'm one of those people who really enjoys the study and discussion of literature and I feel it adds to my enjoyment of a text whereas some people resent being made to study books at school which they come to love later in life. I'm always disappointed to open a poetry collection and find no introduction. I've only been interested in poetry for a few years but in my limited experience I've found that I get so much more from a poem once I know a bit about it's author.

This book is effectively a Selected Poems, where each poem is accompanied by a personal and (mostly) informal analysis by the poet's close friend and editor.

My experience of reading "great" poetry has often left me feeling sure I've missed something or even misunderstood/misread the entire thing. I'm mostly fine with this feeling and I tend to read up on the poet, sometimes reading a biography and then reading what they read and repeating the process until I forgot why I started reading them in the first place. This book does a great job of short circuiting that process by offering intelligent and personal insights into fifty mostly difficult poems.

My reactions to the analyses ranged from a smug "yes I got that too" (Riddle) to a bewildered "there's no way I was ever going to get that" (Hazards). The vast majority of the time, the combined erudition of the two poets completely transforms the second reading - like being offered guidance guided from a helicopter searchlight after being found stumbling along by candlelight.

I was reassured a couple of times by Don Paterson's admission that he too had no idea what Donaghy was getting at in a couple of his poems but he enjoyed them nonetheless. My naive enjoyment of swimming through the language of previously read poems without having the foggiest idea about their understanding was vindicated.

Michael Donaghy's poetry is so varied in tone that it feels like anyone who's ever enjoyed any poem in the past will get something from most of these. Don Paterson's guidance was pitched at the perfect level for a curious but novice reader like me.

[Calico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this was just so pleasurable. I think I will be a better reader of poetry now but reading this was just a good time that might have delivered some incidental self-improvement, like the 1km swim where your arms are working properly.

My priors (this is a word they use at work) going in: until last month the only poem of Donaghy's I'd read was 'Machines' (just so great) and then I bought a copy of his Collected Poems - honestly, mostly because the cover was nice - and I like his voice so much. I used to have the weird iPad app version of Paterson's book about Shakespeare's sonnets. I have no idea what his academic writing is like but on the basis of these two books and his little two sentence comments on each poem in the 101 Sonnets that he edited I would read anything he had to say about others' poetry.

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating.

This book does what the best criticism does, opening up lines of enquiry for readers, rather than laying down a set of ordained readings. There are also some useful pointers from Peterson's personal knowledge of Donaghy and of poetry as a practitioner.

[Tilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don Paterson's appraisal of the work of Irish-American poet Michael Donaghy admits itself that it isn't a typical work of literary criticism. A liking for biography, deviation, and the personal - Paterson uses no other criteria in picking the works other than speaking of those he thinks best - mean that this work doesn't feel typically academic. Yet this is nonetheless literary criticism at its best.

Paterson's book is wonderful because it opens up the man to the reader, and the reader to new ideas, seemingly effortlessly. Paterson reveals the flaw in his own book from the outset: 'this is really just a book about the way I read poetry, or at least read Donaghy', he announces in the introduction, before starting a work that will take the reader from Donaghy to Walter Benjamin to Chuck Palanuik to Hamlet and beyond, all the time leading from a single Donaghy poem at a time, and thus showing the incredible scope of poetry to discuss human life and concerns. Paterson is a master at self-deprecation - I could so easily rewrite his own introduction to read 'this is really just a book about everything - time, memory, surveillance, and much more' - but there we are. This cocktail of Donaghy - whose work really deserves this sustained attention, it's fantastic and far-reaching - and Paterson is heady stuff. It's smart and succinct and endlessly enlightening.

Paterson's refusal to accept the academic convention of ignoring biography, coupled with his close friendship with Donaghy, also give this work the feel of an elegy. Paterson's text is not just a 'how-to' guide to Donaghy's verse, it's a celebration of the man behind the poetry - of his humour, brilliance, and presence. This text paints up a generous, loving portrait of the poet, as well as highlighting his unknowable qualities. We are brought closer to Donaghy, and his humour, while reminded of the impossibility of fully knowing him. It's a beautiful gift to the reader, as well as for Donaghy's son, Ruairí, to whom the work is dedicated. Hell, it's a beautiful gift to poetry. A+.

[Imogen West-knights · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting way to read poetry. Often feel like I don't have the time and mental space to read poetry at the ponderous speed it requires, so having a collection of poems where each is accompanied by a short essay made that intellectual leg-work a bit more manageable for short bursts of reading on the tube etc. Don Paterson's affection for his late friend is touchingly present, and this collection does that controversial thing of allowing personal connection to infiltrate academic engagement with literature. However, Paterson makes no pretence that his commentary is unbiased by his friendship with the poet, and it doesn't feel like an interference with the poetry itself.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith ought to be on the bookshelves of every person new to the study of poetry and literature. And, of course, everyone who has bought this ought to buy at the same time some of the featured poetry by Michael Donaghy. If you don't already possess any.
Smith is a collection of Donaghy's poems commented upon by the late poet's friend, Don Paterson, by way of brief essays. Irrespective of the fact that the intended audience seems, on the surface, to be people new to Donaghy's poems, those already familiar with his work will find a great deal of pleasure in these pages. Don Paterson is a great poet and guide to Donaghy's poetry.

[Edward Ferrari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paterson on good form, the usual Paterson tropes with the usual examples. Still very entertaining, still very exciting, and enlightening. Will read Donaghy again now, as didn't have much luck the first time around.