Shibboleth

This is Michael Donaghy's first full-length collection of verse to be published. His work has a wit and grace reminiscent of the metaphysical poets, and his subjects range widely, responding in unexpected ways to his curiosity and inventiveness. Among the varied pieces collected here are a number of love poems remarkable for their blend of tenderness and irony; a gerse 'news item'; playful 'translations' of a mythical Welsh poet; and an 'interview' with Marcel Duchamp. As the American poet and critic Alfred Corn says: 'Michael Donaghy's poems have the fine-tuned precision of a ten-speed bike, the wit of a streetwise don, a polyphonic inventiveness ...Poems so original, wry, and philosophical as these are hard to come by. Don't think of passing them up.' Michael Donaghy was born in 1954 in the USA. For several years he was poetry editor of the Chicago Review , before he moved to England. He now lives in north London, where he also plays with a group of traditional Irish musicians. The title poem in this collection, 'Shibboleth', won second prize in the National Poetry Competition of 1987. In 1988 he was one of the seven shortlisted for an Arts Council Writers' Award.