Tina Turner - d. May 24th 2023

Turn up the jukebox and listen
to the sound of soulful thunder,
shot of bourbon and hit of acid,
a rhinestone shimmy and a voice
like salt water and molasses. 

Read about Tina Turner here

Rolf Harris - d. May 10th 2023

We all bought your canvas; a fake.
Couldn’t tell what it was till too late;
layer on layer of a betrayer’s paint.
A predator’s hand. A monster’s face.

Rolf Harris

George Logan - d. May 21st 2023

The 70s: I still can’t tell if it was the birth
of a Sapphic Utopia, or its death-throes;
dear old ladies bickering at the piano,

gender-fluid played as a spectator sport,
dragging up our past, and our future. 

Read about George Logan here

Martin Amis - d. May 19th 2023

The written word fades from the living page.
The author shrinks, chapter, line and letter,
leaves the ghost of his own plot, character,
dialogue, becomes a space for a life to fill.

Read about Martin Amis here

Andy Rourke - d. May 19th 2023

That sound; an elastic bass,
cutting through the fey poetry
and the guitar sweetmeats,
driving secrets into the light,
a sound that never goes out.

Read about Andy Rourke here

Linda Lewis - d. May 3rd 2023

All those cuts from the decade
of bad dreams - was that you
in my headphones, five octaves
from baritone to archangel?
Eight bars in and I know for sure
you’re not a little girl anymore. 

Read about Linda Lewis here

Gordon Lightfoot - d. May 1st 2023

Sundown on the prairie
is when the songs come knocking;
ballads of drowned sailors,
of lovesick troubadours walking
nowhere, lonesome railroads
and love, sung like ghosts talking.

Read about Gordon Lightfoot here

Wee Willie Harris - d. April 27th 2023

Play it one more time:
that degenerate sound,
a hormonal explosion,
sung like a seizure
by a creature
one-third ape,
one-third suit,
one-third out of control.

Read about Wee Willie Harris here

Jerry Springer - d. April 27th 2023

Makeup and hair have done
what they can for him, Barnum
of brownstone and trailer park.
He waits off-set for his final cue
to hold our feet to the fire,
to hold a mirror to our faces.

Read about Jerry Springer here

Peter Martin - d. April 19th 2023

You were written small, a line
or two in the ensemble of North,
the quiet soul at the back door
who lets themself in and one day,
without warning, bursts into song.

Read about Peter Martin here

Harry Belafonte - d. April 25th 2023

You came so far to sing the news,
to mend the bucket and its many holes,
to serenade the ending of long night,
nobody’s slave and nobody’s fool.
Daylight comes. Time to go home. 

Read about Harry Belafonte here

Len Goodman - d. April 22nd 2023

The last dance is announced;
it is a gentleman’s excuse-me,
a ritual of foot and physique,
led by an uncle with sequins
for eyes, smiling while he sells
the sausage and the sizzle.

Read about Len Goodman here

Barry Humphries - d. April 22nd 2023

They say you had more tricks than a
Qantas hostie, knew how to skewer
your own people from both ends, so
was this just another turn - Stiff Barry?
Madge plays an intro; no greetings, no,
just a faint whiff of Scotch, and gladioli. 

Read about Barry Humphries here

Mark Stewart - d. April 21st 2023

There is a D-Notice on this poem;
a surveillance dirge we can only un-sing,
a conspiracy of noise, atonal, un-pop.
I picture you ranting alone, un-dancing
in a place beyond good and evil.

Read about Mark Stewart here

Murray Melvin - d. April 14th 2023

On a quiet stage beyond the
bombsites and back-to-backs
we acted out a dream; a dream
of belonging, not to a tribe
but to each other. The dream
is gone, but the act was real.

Read about Murray Melvin here

Mary Quant - d. April 13th 2023

From austerity came geometry,
raising the hemline of the world,
clothing the kinetics of desire
in PVC and polka-dot, cut like
op-art to a new shape: the future.

Read about Mary Quant here

Craig Breedlove - d. April 4th 2023

Such reckless science, jerry-built
from courage; titanium chimera,
part coffin, part lightning bolt,
driven by a driven man, America
expressed as a booming bullet
fired at a wall of air, the last barrier.

Read about Craig Breedlove here

Seymour Stein - d. April 2nd 2023

They will argue that true fame

will find its own glorious few

even in the dark, that talent

needs no agent. The challenge

is to hear what bursts through,

trust your ears, call it by name. 

Read about Seymour Stein here

Ryichi Sakamoto - d. March 28th 2023

That sound you made; sharp
as a thousand knives, strange
as the language of transistors,
a kind of pop beyond cosmic,
surfing on a wave of sound
from Tokyo to tomorrow.

Read about Ryuichi Sakamoto here

Ken Buchanan - d. April 1st 2023

Toe-to-toe is the only way;
jewels of sweat scattering
ten rows into the crowd.
From Leith to the Garden,
a bell rings battle’s end for
gentleman and destroyer.

Read about Ken Buchanan here