“Where are my keys?” I hear Michael’s footsteps thundering down the stairs in the usual panic about being late for the class – which he inevitably was. He never left them in the same place, so it was a case of rifling through coat and trouser pockets, or the chaos on his office desk and floor.
He might have spent half the day preparing a marvellous Powerpoint presentation for his class, which would last approximately five minutes. Or, before such technological marvels were possible, sifting through umpteen photocopies to select poems that would illustrate his point for the evening.
Then grab his briefcase – an old brown leather one that had belonged to his father – with its treasure bag of ‘objects’, slam the door (always) and he was gone. This was his pattern two, sometimes three nights a week, heading out to teach his classes at City University, Birkbeck, and for a short time City Lit.
His students adored him, put up with his lateness, disorganisation, and for more than a year at City University, his arriving with our baby son Ruairi in tow, as our teaching hours overlapped and I would arrive to pick up the baby a few minutes after Michael’s class had begun. One evening, when he supposed to be teaching but was tipped to win the Forward Prize, he took the whole class with him to the prizegiving ceremony.
What inspired this loyalty? Michael had a special gift as a teacher, which I think was to enchant. He took the work very seriously and himself, never. Poetry was something beautiful, precious, a meticulous craft to be learned and honed, and then, as far as possible, the skill behind it cunningly hidden so that it spoke directly to the reader.
This he demonstrated to his students by dipping into his vast knowledge of the poetry canon and offering them examples by other master- and mistress- practitioners: encouraging students to borrow their tactics and use their ideas as starting points, and always to read as widely as possible in order to find their own path to follow. He introduced his students to many poets and poems they might never otherwise have encountered, particularly those from across the Atlantic.
Over the fifteen or so years that he taught these classes, he had many students who have gone on to be highly respected poets and writers themselves, and also, crucially, teachers of poetry writing. I wanted to celebrate that aspect of his work and its ongoing influence – beyond acknowledging the incredible poet that he was himself. (I don’t know whether he ever used his own work as an example for his students, but they all knew and valued it.)
He was patient, funny, and always kind; encouraging and yet rigorous in helping each new poet discover and refine their own voice. The best kind of teacher – one who gently pushes you in the direction you need to go without resorting to discouragement or harsh criticism.
Those evenings would often end in the pub, where Michael would hold court, gracefully accept drinks bought for him, and return home somewhat late, to sleep in the following morning while the day started around him.
In the time before creative writing professorships, this was ‘the day job’ – a two-hour, underpaid, always insecure gig in adult education. And yet I sometimes think his influence may have spread further through those channels than any academic post would have permitted. Besides, he would have hated the admin, and driven his employers spare!
Read on to see the posts by his former students about their memories of Michael’s classes.
Please donate (if you haven’t already) to our crowdfunder in Michael’s honour, to fund a place for a new poet on The Arvon Foundation’s two-year Advanced Writing Programme:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-michael-donaghy-award/backers?page=2#start
And please come to the event we are holding in London on September 17th, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Michael’s death. Tickets available here:
Wordshop Revisited 
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