Tim, your grief at the loss of your friend the artist deserves great sympathy, but it can’t dictate another person’s response to the art. As for whether or not a poet of my insignificance deserves to express an opinion on Michael Donaghy, well Sam Johnson had the answer to that. To a man who said we shouldn’t find fault with Milton because we couldn’t do anything as good ourselves, Johnson replied, “No sir, you may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table. It is not your trade to make tables.” However rickety my tables may be, I am allowed to find fault with another man’s, no matter how eminent.
David, I have no doubt that your essay is admirable. My problem is that that I’m feeling railroaded by the number of encomia that have come out since MD’s death and the appearance of the collected works. If I am told many more times why I must admire him, I’ll end up chewing the carpet. Donaghy is the one recent writer whose entire oeuvre I’ve read, some poems half a dozen times in the past few months. I’ve given him my best shot. Enough, enough.
Brian I don’t know where I’ve seen the Paterson “translations” – Poetry Review, I think, and maybe the London Review of Books. Janice is the oracle, all right.
And Janice, welcome back! How are you???
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