Thanks for these many links, and for your reflections, Katy. I've been searching for a way to contribute something constructive to a discussion of a poet I'm still learning about, and I've found another piece of yours that seems to me helpful: a piece from
Baroque in Hackney in September 2009 on the fifth anniversary of Donaghy's death. I like it especially for those tips of his on the making of poems, and I'm promising myself to make special attention to their use in my next efforts.
One other thing I'm reflecting on is the occasions when I feel myself resistant to a Donaghy poem. The resistance seems to have much to do with the mercurial quality so many commentators have referred to, the complete changeability of the persona in the poems. It's difficult to abandon the effort to find some nonfictional core in the poems--some real "I" to be related to as a friend. I realize that's the same silly error as saying "the poet" instead of "the narrator." It's an error Donaghy forces us to correct if we're to read him comfortably.
I'm looking now to see if David Mason's piece from
The Dark Horse is available online at all....