Stan Bowles – d. February 24th 2024

We love our mavericks; deft,
defiant, playing impudent one-twos
with two fingers in the air,
a betting slip and a phone number
hidden in their wrinkled sock. 

Read about Stan Bowles here

Pamela Salem – d. February 21st 2024

I stumbled across you in the labyrinth
of childhood; serpentine, seductive,
waiting around the corner in a place
where television was a two-way mirror,
and yearning was love without a script. 

Read about Pamela Salem here

John Savident – d. February 21st 2024

Here are roses and a meat cleaver,
Scotch & Threat and hearty laughter,
a slug of pain for a luckless lover.
Life is large, but you were larger.

Read about John Savident here

Ewen MacIntosh – d. February 19th 2024

Have you met him yet?
The empty man at the empty desk,
gloriously flat, outrageously bland,
playing a ‘Don’t Know’ in a slough
of ‘Strongly Disagrees’. 

Read about Ewen MacIntosh

Alexei Navalny – d. February 16th 2024

If you would speak up, know this;
the right word is a wedging of doors,
a filling of lamps, a bending of bars,
a flare shot into the sky, a hand
raised to say no more, a tuning fork
before the choir sings, maybe not
today or tomorrow, but sometime. 

Read about Alexei Navalny here

Steve Wright – d. February 12th 2024

A celestial On Air light blinks
and the airwaves open up.
The music is drowned out
by the wild sounds of a zoo
where animals cannot sing
and the jocks are not serious.

Read about Steve Wright here

Damo Suzuki – d. February 9th 2024

Here is a song sung in code,
in chant, howl, shriek, moan,
sung as in future days, old
now but once new, stoned
yet stone cold sober. Don’t
turn the light on; leave it alone.

Read about Damo Suzuki here

Michael Jayston – d. February 5th 2024

The screen role demands
a particular Englishness;
weary, morose, soft hands
but hard eyes, finesse
but not flash. I wonder who
might fit the part? You. 

Read about Michael Jayston here

Barry John - d. February 4th 2024

Daw'r chwalfa; mae bob amser yn ei wneud.
I fyny yn mynd y Garryowen; daw'r bêl lawr
mewn dimensiwn arall, yn wrthwynebol ymlaen
wedi'i rendro'n ddiffrwyth, yn ansymudol.
Blink, ac mae'r oes aur wedi diflannu.

The breakdown comes; it always does.
Up goes the Garryowen; the ball comes
down in another dimension, opposing
forwards rendered limbless, immobile.
Blink, and the golden age is gone.

Read about Barry John here
 

Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett – d. February 3rd 2024

What your bass taught me:
it is felt before it is heard;
it is conjured from smoke;
it is organiser and upsetter;
it is soul, spine and culture. 

Read about Aston 'Family Man' Barrett here

Ian Lavender – d. February 2nd 2024

Who did you think you were kidding?
You were always a week away from
your call-up, juvenile lead in the
rustic drama of memory, mourning
an old movie and a dead soldier
for every sad stitch in your scarf. 

Read about Ian Lavender here

Wayne Kramer – d. February 2nd 2024

I saw Detroit aflame again tonight,
from Twelfth Street to the Ballroom.
They said it was a stray spark from
an incendiary guitar, played fast by
a hostile witness to the apocalypse.

Read about Wayne Kramer here

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