Remembering Michael Longley

In these first weeks after the death of Michael Longley, I’ve been returning again and again to the poems. I’ve been thinking about the hope he stated for a view of his work into posterity, that it would ‘look like four really long poems. A very long love poem; a very long meditation on war and death; a very long nature poem and a playful poem on the art of poetry.’ Certainly, for me, individually and collectively, they stand utterly of their own character as a generative example to anyone engaged with making art. Their collective sense and achievement moves beyond commitment to an immersion of a life making vital poems. Michael’s poems are always of and for life.

But I don’t want to offer anything towards a critical view. I want simply to say that Michael is one of the poets most dear to me. I would like also to give my thanks again, not just for the poetry itself but for Michael and Edna’s warmth and generosity shown to me and my own work; my own poems, but especially concerning my work in nature conservation. Michael judged The RSPB and The Rialto Nature and Place Competition in 2018, and we hosted them both for an unforgettable reading by Michael at the David Attenborough Building, home of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, in June that year. Michael was so attentive to the prize winners and both he and Edna were so engaged with my colleagues. I remember their questions, care and concern for species, not least a shared ...