Victor Willis - d. June 30th 2026

Maybe heaven is just a street corner
where young men can be who they are,
where discos open but never close,
where traffic stops to watch you dance.
It’s just up the street; follow the noise,
hang out with all the girls, all the boys. 

Read about Victor Willis here

Penelope Keith – June 29th 2026

Some roles are cast to chart the fall
of the English; pitched somewhere
between hunt ball and sweet suburbia,
starch and tiaras and Fortnum hampers,
and oh, how we fell for it, and still do.

Read about Penelope Keith here

Michael Byrne – d. June 20th 2026

Drink to leading men if you must;
I will hang around the stage door
for the slender men in overcoats,
divested of the uniform of dreams -
mournful spy, owlish Nazi, rascal.
So many entrances, and then gone. 

Read about Michael Byrne here

Teddie Beverley – d. June 17th 2026

Lord help the mister
who remembers you
from those glimpses of
green fields and song,
who fell so heavily for
such homespun glamour,
the same in rain and sun. 

Read about Teddie Beverley here

Roger Cook – d. June 13th 2026

A rumpled poem doorstepped me
at 6am. It dogged me from my car
into my portakabin, brandishing a
microphone like a stiletto, shouting
Why are you conning your readers?
Are you a crook? Are you a poet? 

Read about Roger Cook here

Roy Hattersley – d. June 13th 2026

To have principles is to believe
that there is strength in doubt,
that no single way is ever pure,
that people are rarely deceived
by promises of gold, or a cure.
Speak softly; let the weak shout.

Read about Roy Hattersley here

  

David Hockney – d. June 11th 2026

Maybe this is the art I seek:
a simple canvas, clean lines
and summer clothes,
colours mixed from joy,
the best of my days
deep as a swimming pool
from which I never resurface.

Read about David Hockney here

Marjane Satrapi – d. June 4th 2026

I have mislaid the eyes I wore
when I was ten; eyes that
would widen at the sight
of death and revolution,
that would fill at the sight
of another person’s pain.
Let me read, and see again.

Read about Marjane Satrapi here

Anthony Head – d. June 1st 2026

How exciting life was back then;
grand passions over dull coffee,
the turn of a spoon like the turn
of a card. Act out this charade,
this advert for love; no bitterness,
everything sweet and sugary.

Read about Anthony Head here

Sonny Rollins – d. May 25th 2026

Every day’s a great day in Harlem,
but not today; the brownstones
are blue and cool kids improvise
solos from fragments of madness.
The Colossuem is full of noises,
but the Colossus has fallen.

Read about Sonny Rollins here

Judith Chalmers – d. May 21st 2026

I saw a ghost by the pool today,
like an exotic distant aunt, Chanel
sunglasses and sarong, tan lines
and blow wave, leafing through
Condé Nast, wishing she was here. 

Read abouth Judith Chalmers here

Terry Hutt, ‘Union Jack Man’ – d. May 10th 2026

Beware the royal walkabout;
the Union-Jacked of all trades,
stags in crusader tattoos and
scoundrels in ermine who would
steal your place in the queue,
your clothes, even your flag.

Read about Terry Hutt here

Michael Keating – d. April 26th 2026

Hail to the thief, master
of a craven art, surviving
on cowardice and repartee,
too afraid to play the hero,
too smart to play the fool.
No lock you cannot pick,
no plot you cannot unlock.

Read about Michael Keating here

Dennis Locorriere – d. May 16th 2026

I called the Seventies hotline
for some country-disco vibes.
Was it you that answered?
I hung up, and called again;
all I heard was the operator
saying:

              40 cents more
                   for the next
                      three
                         minutes… 

Read about Dennis Locorriere here

Alan Rothwell – d. May 14th 2026

I come from the haunted generation,
spliced from short films, memories
too fragile now to ever screen again.
A kindly man spools the final reel,
lighting the darkness of every frame.

Read about Alan Rothwell here

Kathy Dooley – d. April 22nd 2026

I saw you on Top of the Pops,
reeling from the suffocation
of grinding Cabaret nights,
your lipstick-smudged teeth
and hen-night choreography,
your can’t believe we’re here
smile. Many were called, yes,
but few were ever so chosen.

Read about The Dooleys here

Dean Tavoularis – d. April 22nd 2026

There are some places in the past
that only the movies can take us to,
designing, dressing and detailing
the darkness at the heart of America,
through time and tone and narrative. 

Read about Dean Tavoularis here

Alan Osmond – d. April 20th 2026

I did not choose the Seventies,
and yet it poured its light into me,
offering an Elysium in bell-bottoms,
promising summer without autumn,
a place where all the rivers are lazy
and people, like horses, are crazy. 

Read about Alan Osmond here

Desmond Morris - d. April 19th 2026

He writes of homo finalis, last
of the apes, up on its hind legs
yet stooping under the weight
of its own intellect. He writes
the story of a curious species,
knowing that the last page will
be written by someone else.

Read about Desmond Morris here

Andy Kershaw – d. April 16th 2026

Today I heard a song I didn’t know I needed;
born at the frontier of music and ethnography.
Bring me real music from an unreal world,
from Rochdale to Rwanda, these curiosities
of sound, the pleasures of the unlikely groove.

Read about Andy Kershaw here