John Leeson – d. November 1st 2026

When old friends turn to rust
and love falls into corrosion,
when batteries run down and
the answer to our questions
is always Insufficient Data,
listen for the affirmative voice
telling the tale that wags the dog.

Read about John Leeson here

Juan Atkins – d. October 31st 2026

God said Here’s to the shock of the new
and cued up Kraftwerk on the turntable.
Some kids tuned in; one was you,
with a drum machine and a 909,
saying The future must be redesigned.

Read about Juan Atkins here

Sandra Kerr – d. October 29th 2026

I heard you sing of the strangest people;
Uncle Feedle, the Bony King of Nowhere.
We must all lose our voices in time; these
old songs will learn to sing themselves
to those who remain. But listen! Here is
a chorus of mice to mend your memory.

Read about Sandra Kerr here

Patrick Stewart – d. October 28th 2026

Space is the greatest theatre, where
gravity and gravitas are in balance,
and all action is relative to the stars.
A good line is the surest compass;
set course. Let’s see what’s out there.

Read about Patrick Stewart here

Elke Sommer – d. October 28th 2026

Even in the dark I knew it was you;
that eau-de-cologne - what was it? -
ah yes - Naïveté, a scent fit only for
those who wish to be misunderstood,
who like to keep their men waiting,
kittenish in kohl, dripping with ditz.

Read about Elke Sommer here

Peter Medak – d. October 27th 2026

I am scouting locations for your life,
from classroom to gallows to gutter.
I light each shot in sixteen shades
of dark, natural light turning into
supernatural light, and each frame
edged with unaccountable dread. 

Read about Peter Medak here

Walter Koenig – d. October 25th 2026

Your character is a 'wessel' for its time,
a voyage from the future, but also from
the past, laden with dangerous cargoes.
In a Universe warped by optimism, old
worlds show how new worlds could be.

Read about Walter Koenig here

Tom Skerritt – d. October 21st 2026

The camera tracks in close-up
to a cast of faces; all the same
bones, hewn from granite yet
softening at a woman’s smile,
skin like prairie scrub, eyes blue
as the bayou or the empty sky.

Read about Tom Skerritt here

Douglas Dunn – d. October 16th 2026

I must revisit your library of times,
to browse, to study, to be renewed.
The books within call out, brimming
with ideas, yet easy as an old suit.
The doors are heavy, but always open;
my friend, say you’ll come with me.

Read about Douglas Dunn here

Eva Marie Saint – d. October 6th 2026

The house lights go up; just me
as the reel ends…and a woman
on her own, three rows back,
svelte and luminous, hair like
threads of platinum. She lights
a cigarette, says great movie,
and time stands still, and so do I.

Read about Eva Marie Saint here

George Fenton - d. October 5th 2026

Wait, wait, I know this one; Bergerac.
Gandhi. Groundhog Day. I, Daniel Blake.
Composed, scored, played, proof
that we hear with square-eyes, that
we remember the lives we’ve seen
when we can whistle their theme.

Read about George Fenton here

Jeffrey Archer – d. October 5th 2026

The church clock stands
at ten to three; words are
priceless in the mouths
of chiselers and shysters.
The benches groan with
fabulists, and the book
writes the man. Nothing
of this, of course, is true.

Read about Jeffrey Archer here

Lena Martell – d. October 5th 2026

Yesterday’s gone; the ballrooms fall
to the wrecking balls of talent show
and karaoke. A woman takes the mic
and rakes among the ruins of a heart,
pokes at the embers of a gospel tune,
does every day what she has to do.

Read about Lena Martell here

Esther Rantzen – d. September 30th 2026

Turn down the volume on the froth;
the talking dogs, phallic vegetables,
odd odes and high street vox pops.
Do you hear it? A child, repeating
to themselves a telephone number
given out by a woman on TV with
wonky teeth, promising to answer.

Read about Esther Rantzen here

Peter May – d. September 25th 2026

The isles are full of bodies,
weighted down in dark lochans
or buried under lush machair.
The heart is a blackhouse, and
there is blood to be written of.

Read about Peter May here

Stephanie Cole – d. September 18th 2026

I speak as I find, and when I speak,
I find the voice of the woman inside;
matron and matriarch, hard-faced
yet tender-eyed, perfecting a look
that could sharpen a bread knife.

Read about Stephanie Cole here

Bonnie Greer – d. September 15th 2026

How to live without portfolio:

ask more questions, provide
fewer answers; disagree
agreeably; offer your truth
without assuming it to be
universal; counter hate with
reason; take it easy, but take it.

Read about Bonnie Greer here

Craig Douglas – d. September 4th 2026

Curtain up on another cabaret,
last chance for your counterfeit
nostalgia - hey, remember this?
This is the sound of long-soured
milk, memories of me at sixteen,
a time I was too young to know.

Read about Craig Douglas here

Richard O’Sullivan – d. September 4th 2026

It used to be that you could get by
on butter-wouldn’t-melt, playing it
light in heavy times, living over the
brush and under the thumb, with
hilarious consequences. That nest
is empty now; the birds have flown.

Read about Richard O'Sullivan here

Gloria Steinem – d. September 2nd 2026

Revolution first stirs in the head,
then the hearth, boardroom, bed,
even the womb. The just fight
rallies just fighters to the call, 
making activists out of us all,
not for a cause, but for a right.

Read about Gloria Steinem here