[The obit posted above is basically extracted from the Guardian, but without some vital statistics. This one was posted Here. ]
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Vale Michael Donaghy

Arts Hub
Tuesday, September 28, 2004

The death has occurred of poet Michael Donaghy, at the all too young age of 50. A New Yorker of Irish extraction, Donaghy had made London his home for almost 20 years. He died on 16 September following a brain haemorrhage.
News of Donaghy's death has shocked the literary community. A highly acclaimed poet and musician, his poetry has won numerous awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
An edition of the Penguin Modern Poets series placed Donaghy alongside Andrew Motion and Hugo Williams.
His poetry has been described as 'passionate and elegant'. His first collection, Slivers was published in 1985, following a six-year editorship of the Chicago Review.
Shibboleth (1988) won both the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Errata (1993) was selected for promotion as a 'New Generation Poet'.
Wallflowers, 'a lecture on poetry with misplaced notes and additional heckling' (available from the Poetry Society) was the essay resulting from his post as Creative Reader in Residence for the Society in 1999. It is considered to be one of the wittiest treatises on the meaning of poetry in recent times.
Conjure (2000) won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Poetry Collection of the Year and was short-listed for the Whitbread and the T.S. Eliot Prizes. 2000 also saw the publication of a retrospective collection, Dances Learned Last Night covering the 20 years from 1975.
A fine musician of the Irish traditional school, Donaghy founded Samradh Music in Chigaco and was in the early line-up of Lammas. He moved to London in 1985 to join his partner Maddy Paxman, a fellow musician. Their son, Ruairi, was born in 1996.
Although the funeral was a private family one, a memorial service is being planned for the many who will wish to celebrate the life of such a talented man. His warmth and personal charm endeared him to many in the literary and musical worlds and beyond.
Maddy Paxman can be contacted through Michael's Publisher, Picador, or via Gerry Wardle at TriplePA, 15 Connaught Gardens, Forest Hall, Newcastle, NE12 8AT. All cards, letters and messages will be forwarded to her.
A trust fund has been set up for their son, Ruairi. Contributions can be sent:
c/o Roslyn Cassidy
Green Endings
141 Fortess Road
London NW5 2HR
Cheques should be made payable to "Green Endings" and a notes attached saying 'In memory of Michael Donaghy'. Roslyn will keep a record and pass this on to Maddy.
The date and venue for the memorial service will be announced shortly.

Exile's End
You will do the very last thing.
Wait then for a noise in the chest,
between depth charge and gong,
like the seadoors slamming on the car deck.
Wait for the white noise and then cold astern.
Gaze down over the rim of the enormous lamp.
Observe the skilled frenzy of the physicians,
a nurse's bald patch, blood. These will blur,
as sure as you've forgotten the voices
of your childhood friends, or your toys.
Or, you may note with mild surprise,
your name. For the face they now cover
is a stranger's and it always has been.
Turn away. We commend you to the light,
Where all reliable accounts conclude.

Michael Donaghy (24 May 1954-16 September 2004)