Carl Andre – d. January 24th 2024

There were questions, of course; art, or
a stocktake at the builders’ merchants?
All the same, they queued geometrically,
nursing outrage yet hoping to glimpse
wonder in the cold of slab and firebrick. 

Read about Carl Andre here

Melanie Safka – d. January 23rd 2024

Look what they’ve done; mislaid
your name, misfiled your 45s and
mistook you for Joni. I skated past
your place last night; a sign on the
door: Gone away. Back Tuesday. 

Read about Melanie here

Frank Farian - d. January 23rd 2024

Welcome to the great European
Discotheque. It’s a shame
how we carry on; lip-syncing
to the faithful and the faceless,
finding the happiness we seek,
out together dancing chic to cheese.

Read about Frank Farian here

Norman Jewison – d. January 20th 2024

Take me again to see them;
the ghosts of Anatevka, Virgil
in Mississippi’s unrighteous
helter-swelter. Let me lace up
my skates with Jonathan E,
roll out of the screen into life.

Read about Norman Jewison here

Laurie Johnson – d. January 16th 2024

Programme starts, the signature plays,
a magic orchestra several rooms away.
We all know the tune, what it means;
bold drama in every explosive scene.
Rising brass sets my child’s mind alight,
strings say everything will be alright.

Read about Laurie Johnson here

Georgina Hale – d. January 4th 2024

Take off those glasses
and talk to me like you talk
to all those men you have smitten;
adenoidal, classless.
Slink to me in that frowzy frock,
while you put the sex into sex kitten.

Read about Georgina Hale here

Mary Weiss – d. January 19th 2024

I too felt the taste of teen anguish,
love’s bitter candy. A girl sings
its yearning language, rides pillion
on slippery highways, aching to be
free. Get the picture? Yes, we see.

Read about Mary Weiss here

Annie Nightingale – d. January 11th 2024

I heard a new 45; the bass like
the rumbling of change, snare
sampled from breaking bricks.
Is that your touch on the tone arm,
your voice in the crackle of vinyl?

Read about Annie Nightingale here

J.P.R. Williams – d. January 8th 2024

Yma y daw; ysgarlad trên
cludo nwyddau, jinking chwith-dde,
holl sanau cig dafad a rholio,
dod o hyd i bêl lân, trosglwyddo i ffwrdd
y diafol, torri'r llinell.
 

Here he comes; a scarlet
freight train, jinking left-right,
all mutton and rolled socks,
finding clean ball, handing off
the devil, breaking the line. 

Rerad about J.P.R. Williams here

Franz Beckenbauer – d. January 7th 2024

Der freie Mann ist wieder mit seinem Mannschaft zurück,
immer einen Pass vor dem Spiel,
Der Libero des Liberos hinter einer Viererwand,
Kaiser und Arbeiter, ein und dasselbe.
 
The free man is back with his team once more,
always one pass ahead of the game,
the libero's libero behind a wall of four,
Kaiser and worker, one and the same. 

Read about Franz Beckenbauer here

Glynis Johns – d. January 4th 2024

The famous become nameless as their era disappears.
The actors with the factor are the ones that have gone.
A name that once knew fame becomes obscured and then ignored.
The lens moves on again until the Glynises are finished.

Read about Glynis Johns here

David Soul – d. January 4th 2024

I have a dream of you and me in Bay City,
your blue eyes laughing as you drive.
My teenage days were all back alleys,
dark and full of empty boxes, promises
that one day we might still come through.

Read about David Soul here

John Pilger – d. December 30th 2023

A good man makes his own ink
from courage and hot metal, totes
his typewriter to ruined places
where lives are cheap and grey,
writes wrongs in black and white. 

Read about John Pilger here

Tom Wilkinson – d. December 30th 2023

Acting is the intentional reveal;
the subtleties of voice and stance,
of characters worn lightly, the feel
of a line as it unravels, the dance
with the audience, the follow spot
that exposes everything you’ve got. 

Read about Tom Wilkinson here

Richard Franklin – d. December 25th 2023

Uniform often means death-ray fodder,
Nobody’s hero, but somebody’s buffoon.
I fell for your story; straight back, proper,
Telling a subaltern’s tale, over too soon. 

Read about Richard Franklin here

Mo Moreland – d. December 18th 2023

Heel-step, heel-step, step-heel,
into brush and shuffle, a flight
of rawboned youth made real,
atoms still colliding in the twilight,
a dance of elements. Oh Little Mo;
not a freak show, but a show.