Coolio - d. September 28th 2022

Not many gangstas in my hood,

and yet you gave this boy a taste

of paradise - like hell with beats.

I take a look at my life and realise

there's not much left, though I’d be

dead as a shadow on your streets.

Read about Coolio here

Hilary Mantel - d. September 22nd 2022

I drink to literature as an ear,

eavesdropping in the dark.

I drink to literature as an eye,

sharpening what is vague.

I drink to literature as a hand,

overpainting the faded.

I drink to the past as a present.

Read about Hilary Mantel here

Eddie Butler - d. September 15th 2022

This will be the final phase;

no time now for rolling maul,

but a cool head, a tap-and-go,

Yet here's a voice to take the ball,

sure as the Pontypool Front Row

or the whistle blown at end of play.

Read about Eddie Butler here

Jean-Luc Godard - d. September 13th 2022

This is a story of narrative

told out of order, a camera 

for a pen. The story cannot 

breathe for itself; it requires

the breath of an outsider, 

an eye that edits as it shoots, 

a new vocabulary of telling.

Ceci est une histoire de narration

dit dans le mauvais ordre, une caméra

pour un stylo. L'histoire ne peut

respirer pour lui-même; cela requiert

le souffle d'un étranger,

un œil qui édite en même temps qu'il tire,

un nouveau vocabulaire de la narration.

Read about Jean-Luc Godard here

Gwyneth Powell - d. September 8th 2022

A small body is lain 

across a catafalque 

of school-desks. 

Chalk like incense settles 

on every surface. 

A school bell tolls the hours. 

Term is over, 

but I cannot bring myself

to go home.

Read about Gwyneth Powell here

Frank Drake - d. September 2nd 2022

N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

R∗ = the rate of geniuses in the population

fp = the fraction of those with something to say

ne = the average number of minds that care

fl = the fraction of those that understand

fi = the fraction of those that appreciate

fc = the fraction of those that celebrate

L = the length of a poem that does so

Read about Frank Drake here

Mark Shreeve - d. August 31st 2022

We are all circuitry.

Pass voltage through us;

do we not oscillate?

In the end, everything 

is analogue, and death 

just a higher harmonic.

Read about Mark Shreeve here

Bill Turnbull - d. August 31st 2022

The world has want of warmth 

these days, and we have to take it 

where we find it. I fire up 

the morning coffee, the telly.

The sofa is dented where a man

once sat, a halo of bees buzzing,

lost now under the studio lights.

Read about Bill Turnbull here

Mikhail Gorbachev - d. 30th August 2022

What courage to open curtains

though your house is full of dark, 

to make peace with neighbours

while family changes your locks,

to shop for days of hope when 

mistrust is all we have in stock.

Read about Mikhail Gorbachev

Vincent Gil - d. August 21st 2022

Somwehere between the unrighteous 

and the unroadworthy are scags like you;

tailgaters, jailbreakers, petrol-blaggers, 

the sort who'd cut you up, leave you 

for dead. Oh yes, I'll remember you 

when I look up at the night sky.

Read about Vincent Gil here

Jerry Allison - d. August 22nd 2022

Downtown rings with songs 

the sort they don't play 

anymore, except this one, 

on this day. If you knew 

that shuffle on the snare

was the sound of goodbye, 

maybe you'd be blue too.

Read about Jerry Allison here

Josephine Tewson - d. August 18th 2022

There are leads and there are players;

some front of shot, others just in frame.

A troupe of neighbours, sisters, wives,

playing small truths, over and again.

Here’s to you, the ensemble of the world,

whose faces we know but cannot name.

Read about Josephine Tewson here

Duggie Brown - d. August 16th 2022

I hear sounds; a pickaxe on coal,

the whine of a milkfloat at dawn, 

the crackle of terylene under velvet,

the crackle of a cheap microphone,

a working man among working men,

chiselled from old grit and old jokes.

Darius Campbell-Danesh - d. August 16th 2022

Sometimes it’s just not our time,

baby. Sometimes the light shines

on another face in the chorus line, 

sometimes the songs don’t rhyme.

Keep singing, baby. You’ll be fine.

Joe Turkel - d. June 27th 2022

Revel in your time:
your lugubrious face,
the pouring of a bourbon 
in a darkened place,
the bioengineering of magic
from short scripts of wonder.

Nichelle Nichols - d. July 30th 2022

Hailing frequencies open;

the sound of a trillion voices 

singing strange new songs 

across the ebony of space. 

You kiss me in the darkness, 

a promise of new civilisation.

Read about Nichelle Nichols here

Raymond Briggs - d. August 9th 2022

Blooming stories! Yours to tell

in line and colour and little else.

You held our hands. We never fell.

The wind blows. The snow melts.

Read about Raymond Briggs here

Lamont Dozier - d. August 9th 2022

Every day is like a new song:

What are you writing today?

Will it be an itch in my heart 

or a twitch in my heels? 

Either way,  

it’s love, here and now, 

even though you’re gone.

Read about Lamont Dozier here

Olivia Newton-John - d. August 8th 2022

That final reel was my adolescence frozen,

a teen ache made physical. There was

no getting over you, only unripe emotion,

nothing but a guilty crush to admit to.

Oh, we boys and our hopeless devotions. 

Read about Olivia Newton-John here

Judith Durham - d. August 5th 2022

Somewhere 

there is a fleeting voice,

half-sunshine, half rain. 

Somewhere

they are packing the sound 

of a carnival into boxes. 

Somewhere 

there is a mourning town,

many miles away.

Read about Judith Durham here