______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shibboleth
One didn’t know the name of Tarzan’s monkey.
Another couldn’t strip the cellophane
From a G.I.’s pack of cigarettes.
By such minutiae were the infiltrators detected.
By the second week of battle
We’d become obsessed with trivia.
At a sentry point, at midnight, in the rain,
An ignorance of baseball could be lethal.
The morning of the first snowfall, I was shaving,
Staring into a mirror nailed to a tree,
Intoning the Christian names of the Andrews Sisters.
“Maxine, Laverne, Patty.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Michael Donaghy was born in the Bronx to Irish immigrant parents. In his thirties, he settled in the UK, where he became a well-known and highly regarded poet. Also an accomplished flute and whistle player, he was an active part of London’s traditional Irish music scene. His sudden death at age 50 was a great loss to both the literary and traditional music communities. Fintan O’Toole’s piece for the Irish Times examines Donaghy’s “elastic identity.” Donaghy’s wife, Maddy Paxman, published a book in 2014 about their life together. See also The Guardian and the Poetry Foundation for more on Donaghy's life and work. See the Session for information on his life in Irish music. To hear him play, see this clip:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________