Shape of the Dance: Essays, Interviews & Digressions

by Michael Donaghy

When Michael Donaghy died in 2004 at the age of fifty, he was one of the UK's best-known and best-loved poets; he was also a literary critic of the first rank. Donaghy's prose is notable for the same delightfully lucid style and lightly worn erudition so admired in his verse. His was also the most intellectually promiscuous of minds, and he was happy to allude to Irish music, neuroscience and Renaissance art in the same breath and rarely resisted a good joke, if it served his argumentative purpose. This companion volume to the Collected Poems gathers together the best of his writing on poetry and the arts, as well as a number of fascinating and revealing interviews. It also reprints his classic primer in ars poetica, 'Wallflowers'.

Genres: Poetry

204 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2009

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

[Liam Guilar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't mean to read this in one sitting. I just had to keep going thinking sooner or later I'd find something to disagree with. Anyone who sees Mahon and MacNeice as significant, and holds out for the singing line has my vote. He's refreshingly blunt about trends and fashions in poetry and his "may I make a suggestion" which ghosts Bunting's "I suggest" is probably compulsory reading for anyone trying to write poetry:

"i've collected a set of suggestions which I advise the inexperienced to follow for six months. After that, I tell them, follow your instinct."

The introduction by Clive James is judicious. That's a compliment and it's a word you don't get to use very often when describing blurbs and introductions.

The danger with collections like this, random assortments of bits and pieces published separately over time, is repetition. And there's a bit of it here, the same examples crop up, but that's hardly a glaring fault.

It's a beautiful selection of pieces about poetry which deals with poems rather than theories and which is going to reward rereading.

is there enough here to substantiate claims about Donaghy's status as a critic? That question needs time.

[Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm thinking of creating a religion that worships Donaghy.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had no end of trouble getting a copy of this and I am so happy I've finally got it. Devouring it now.