September 25, 2017

Michael Donaghy's 'The Hunter's Purse'

Listen Later

13 minutes

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written.

Tonight, Michael Donaghy 'The Hunter's Purse'.

The Hunter's Purse

is the last unshattered 78

by 'Patrolman Jack O'Ryan, violin',

a Sligo fiddler in dry America.

A legend, he played Manhattan's ceilidhs,

fell asleep drunk one snowy Christmas

on a Central Park bench and froze solid.

They shipped his corpse home, like his records.

This record's record is its lunar surface.

I wouldn't risk my stylus to this gouge,

or this crater left by a flick of ash -

When Anne Quinn got hold of it back in Kilrush,

she took her fiddle to her shoulder

and cranked the new Horn of Plenty

Victrola over and over and over,

and scratched along until she had it right

or until her father shouted

'We'll have no more

Of that tune

In this house tonight'.

She slipped out back and strapped the contraption

to the parcel rack and rode her bike

to a far field, by moonlight.

It skips. The penny I used for ballast slips.

O'Ryan's fiddle pops, and hiccoughs

back to this, back to this, back to this:

a napping snowman with a fiddlecase;

a flask of bootleg under his belt;

three stars; a gramophone on a pushbike;

a cigarette's glow from a far field;

over and over, three bars in common time.

...more

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The Essay

By BBC Radio 3

4.2

8282 ratings

September 25, 2017

Michael Donaghy's 'The Hunter's Purse'

Listen Later

13 minutes

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written.

Tonight, Michael Donaghy 'The Hunter's Purse'.

The Hunter's Purse

is the last unshattered 78

by 'Patrolman Jack O'Ryan, violin',

a Sligo fiddler in dry America.

A legend, he played Manhattan's ceilidhs,

fell asleep drunk one snowy Christmas

on a Central Park bench and froze solid.

They shipped his corpse home, like his records.

This record's record is its lunar surface.

I wouldn't risk my stylus to this gouge,

or this crater left by a flick of ash -

When Anne Quinn got hold of it back in Kilrush,

she took her fiddle to her shoulder

and cranked the new Horn of Plenty

Victrola over and over and over,

and scratched along until she had it right

or until her father shouted

'We'll have no more

Of that tune

In this house tonight'.

She slipped out back and strapped the contraption

to the parcel rack and rode her bike

to a far field, by moonlight.

It skips. The penny I used for ballast slips.

O'Ryan's fiddle pops, and hiccoughs

back to this, back to this, back to this:

a napping snowman with a fiddlecase;

a flask of bootleg under his belt;

three stars; a gramophone on a pushbike;

a cigarette's glow from a far field;

over and over, three bars in common time.

...more