| Michael Donaghy Photograph by Claire McNamee |
My hero:
Michael Donaghy
by Maggie O'Farrell
His teaching style was an invigorating and mesmerising mix of laid-back chat, practical advice, an astonishing ability to quote from memory, analytical rigour, bad jokes, and an unstinting devotion to poetry, says Maggie O'Farrell
Saturday 20 November 2010
"Hair oil, boiled sweets, chalk dust, squid's ink . . . / Bear with me. I'm trying to conjure my father."
There are many of us out there who would, if we only could, conjure the man who wrote these lines – Michael Donaghy, the Irish-American poet who died in 2004. How might the list go? Tweed overcoat, huge grin, sheaf of papers, flute . . .