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06-29-2017, 05:32 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 3,954
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Helen Dunmore
I'd like to note the passing of this dear friend, a poet and novelist who held a central position in British literary life for the past couple of decades. Her funeral was held yesterday at Clifton Cathedral in Bristol, and was a beautiful though immensely sad occasion.
Helen was an invaluable advocate for other writers, and for painters too, and, without exaggeration, the kindest and most generous person I have been fortunate enough to know. It's impossible to say how much she will be missed by a great many people.
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06-29-2017, 06:47 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: The Borders, Andalucia and Italy
Posts: 1,537
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A grievous loss indeed, Adam. We were both very sad, when we read of her death. You were very privileged to have known her. Best thoughts, Nigel and Vanessa.
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06-30-2017, 12:43 AM
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Old South Wales (UK)
Posts: 6,667
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She was a truly beautiful woman in all aspects of herself. A joy to the world. She will be missed.
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06-30-2017, 03:17 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: UK
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Thank you, Nigel and Ann. It's good to know that the world can still create such people, and that's a big consolation.
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06-30-2017, 05:46 AM
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: Yorkshire, UK
Posts: 2,479
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Let me belatedly add my voice to this thread. I was lucky enough to meet Helen Dunmore in the early 1980s at a time when her reputation was purely for her poetry. She tutored a week-long residential course I took part in at Lumb Bank, here in Yorkshire, an eighteenth-century mill-owner’s house that had once been the property of Ted Hughes. Helen was an excellent tutor, blending generous encouragement with a sharp critical intelligence for the developing processes of particular poems. Everyone found in her the admirable traits referred to above, and she was liked and admired by us all, both for her literary skills and for her human qualities.
For a year or so after the course closed, I corresponded with her. She was just as supportive and generous on paper as she had been in person.
Derek Walcott was once asked in an interview to describe his friend, Seamus Heaney, who had recently died. He was so overcome by emotion he could utter only one word: “Beautiful”. The same might be said of Helen. She is sadly missed by, I imagine, a great many.
Clive Watkins
Last edited by Clive Watkins; 06-30-2017 at 07:01 AM.
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06-30-2017, 06:45 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Middle England
Posts: 6,950
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I never had the pleasure of meeting her, but Helen Dunmore was indeed a beautiful woman, and died far too young.
Sad news.
Jayne
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