Ann Drysdale RIP - UPDATE about funeral
 

A friend of hers from England sends the sad news that Ann Drysdale was found dead today, apparently having died in her sleep.

In her poem "She Writes Her Own Obituary", Ann imagined this sentence as the final message on a poet's screen:

"Spry she was, too, for such an old woman:
Could still turn a phrase like a chit of a girl."

Thank you, Annie, for all the well-turned phrases.

This is sad news indeed. Alas...

Clive

She will be much missed here. A stellar poet and delightful person. I am so sorry to hear this.

Susan

Very sad news. She’s been quiet in recent months, but checked in regularly. I saw her in “users online” in the last few days, I think. Wish I had known her in her heyday on the Sphere. As the Russians say, may the earth be like down for her.

Oh, no. I'm absolutely devastated to hear this news. Annie and I were close friends. I'll miss her, and our phone chats.
I'm stunned beyond belief.

Jayne

Oh my God, that's horrible! Ann was one of my favorite online friends, a lovely person and also one of the smartest and most talented among us.

She posted on the Drills and Amusements page yesterday afternoon with a link to the 1995 BBC adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm. I watched it and wrote to thank her. I never met her but she seemed to be a lovely lady with a sharp mind.

Oh dear. Always loved her posts and poems. Such sad news, and I'm especially sorry for those who knew her well.

Damm! Ann was a fine poet, and a gracious voice of wisdom. She will be missed.

What a talent — and what a life! My condolences to her family, should they look in here.

Sounds as if she "went light." I dearly hope so.


Going Light
by Ann Drysdale

They call it “going light”, the loss of substance
That goes with the failing of the spirit
When the end comes.

My old dog went light just before he died.
His thin bones whispered in his hairy skin
And went to sleep

And all that was left of him was the light
That faded slowly as his eyes went dim;
The other light.

Going light, light going. It was as if
I had perceived a sort of sense in it
For a moment.

Two kinds of light, making an hourglass
Laid on its side between weight and darkness;
The shape of dying.

Death is the snapping of the narrow neck
In between substance and oblivion
And that is all.

And as you come near to the glass isthmus
I wish for the breaking to be gentle.
Go light, my love.

This is awful news. I'm stunned. I'll truly miss her.
Let's remember her with more of her poems. There's a useful collection here:
http://www.thehypertexts.com/Ann%20D...ture%20Bio.htm

Ann Drysdale
 

I have just heard that Ann died in her sleep the night before last. What a loss. (The news was posted on social media by Sheenagh Pugh via Angela France.) RIP

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Ugh. Such a gut-punch. Such sad news. Though I know she called many places her home, Annie made me feel Welsh every time I read her. I first experienced the art of sheep shearing through her eyes. I took her then just-published book Feeling Unusual to Mexico and mistakingly left it in the room where I was staying. She had signed it and written such a beautiful inscription. I felt such a loss then and I feel it again now. Her memory will be cherished by me and in me. Kick up your heels, Annie. There's more.


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Oh, no! That's awful news!

That's terrible news. Can we convey our collective sympathies to her family?

There is already a thread about this sad event. It might be useful to put all our comments there so they'll be in one place for the family's reference. Here is the existing thread.

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"My worldly goods are few indeed;
two worn-out boots and a gunny-sack
though these are the only things I need
to dance to the edge of the world and back."
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This is very sad news indeed. I am devastated.

I just can't believe it. She was so alive. Don't know what to say...

In an email just ten days ago, about a thorny computer problem, I wrote to Annie, "you are not alone" not knowing those words might resonate today. My favorite poem of hers shows how kind and loving she was. Lucky for us, her poems will live always, even though I'll miss her terribly.

Shadow
by Ann Drysdale

Shadow, I waited for you at the station,
watched you approaching before you saw me.
A stranger brought you down on a wheelchair,
pink coat unmissable in the glass lift,
emerging like a fairy-ex-machina
onto the overpopulated stage.

I was appalled at the smallness of you;
so much less of you than I was expecting.
For a moment before you spotted me
I felt the friendship in me run towards you
to wrap your small bones tight in your pink shadow,
feel with my fingers for the secret key
between sharp shoulderblades and turn it, turn it
till it met the familiar resistance,
then put you gently down, set you a-going,
clap with you happily as you repeated
the ceaseless twitter, the two-footed hop
of the happy child that is still inside
the little lady-doll whose fingers fidget
on the pale leather handbag in her lap.

And then the recognition. Your old smile —
“Ah, there you are!” And I was on my knees —
“Yes, darling, here I am” — beside the wheelchair,
my arms enfolding all there was, my hands
meeting in grief, because there is no key.

I'm stunned at this news. Annie was an amazing poet and a lovely friend. I'll miss her very much.

Jayne

This is sad news. She was kind to me. May she RIP.

Quick note to say that I merged the two active threads.

xoxo, Annie

Shocked and saddened by this terrible news.

And pace Dylan Thomas,

"Go gentle, Annie, into that good night."

I'm writing this on a beach, on holiday, which feels very strange. It's really too sad to take in. Annie was the first Spherean, first poet, I met in the flesh, about 6 years ago. After chatting a while via PM, then email, we arranged I pick her up at the train station and she came to spend the night at my house: a completely adventurous whim, which I loved her for. We went to the pub, talked poetry, gossiped about the Sphere and had a fine and memorable old time of it. It was an honour to count her as a friend. She was so funny and very kind.

And the poems. Just so many clever, wise, affecting, irreverent, human poems.

People come and go here. She'd been quiet for a while but I never doubted she'd be back, that we might reignite that silly "limerflicks" thread again, and that there would be more poems from her. She emailed me fairly recently to say there was a new collection in the offing that was going to be called Housman's Rat*, and attached a wonderful potential cover of 2 cartoon rats smoking a huge spliff.

I've been reading through our email exchanges, smiling but feeling very sad. I'm really going to miss her.

Here's the Dec 2022 Zoom launch for Feeling Unusual that Nemo organised and introduces with his characteristic eloquence. What a joy she is here and how much love for her in the room.

https://youtu.be/cgGQM3bOMOU?si=8wKz2xv3T967fD1r

*I never asked her but I assume the title came from this:

"Poetry indeed seems to me more physical than intellectual. A year or two ago, in common with others, I received from America a request that I would define poetry. I replied that I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat, but that I thought we both recognised the object by the symptoms which it provokes in us."

AE Housman

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Annie (Feeling Unusual)

I didn’t know her
but I wonder
If death took her
or she slept through it.

As I said
I didn’t know her
except to say
I felt I did.

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Oh no. This is so sad. Annie was one of the first people to respond - and certainly one of the kindest - when I first started posting here. (I was deeply impressed by the fact, which I soon discovered, that she had been a personal friend of the great Jake Thackray.)

I loved her poems too, and cherish signed copies of two of her collections.

Unlike Mark (whom I envy, greatly) I never actually met her, although I had that on my wish list. The sea is wide, and I cannot swim over. We did exchange emails - too sporadically - and I sent her one starting "How are you?" just last Wednesday. I can stop looking forward to her reply now.

I called her my giddy poetry aunt, and she sometimes signed off her emails as that. Hail, now, Great Aunt. We are diminished.

I don't think I'll be able to read either of those collections for a day or two yet.

Greatly saddened by this news. Should her family access this site, I send you my deepest condolences.

Not sure this will work — trying to upload it didn't — but here's a photo of Annie, the Muse of Humour, when my younger daughter and I met her at the National Gallery in 2015.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HV0...ew?usp=sharing

When I emailed this and other photos of our London larks to her, she wrote:
"I'm intrigued by the codpiece in the floor mosaic picture (bottle of water in kangaroo-pocket - hee hee)."

Typical!

(This morning I note that in that mosaic, Humour is at the intersection of Folly and Lucidity. Which seems just right for Annie.)

What a beautiful person and truly fine poet. I'm very sad to hear this news.

Although I have not been around these parts in years, I wanted to return to express my grief for the passing of Ann. Even though I had only a few exchanges with her regarding our poems, I always remember the deep kindness of her comment about mine in which I had expressed so much pain. I took her passing as a blow, remembering the kindness she showed. I know that like me she loved trees, but one tree of which she didn't know was the one that would grow in my memory from the seed of kindness she planted. Remembering too she referred to me a fellow tree hugger, today I hug that tree she planted within my memory.

I liked Ann. She appeared reasonable. For me, that is high praise.

Just to say I am in contact with one of Annie's sons and have given him a link to this thread.

Thank you for that, Angela.
I would like to attend Annie's funeral, as we were close friends, and would be very grateful to know what the arrangements are, when they've been made.

Meanwhile, sincere deepest condolences to you, and to Annie's family.

Jayne

I didn’t know Ann very well and can probably count on one hand the number of our interactions, but I was shocked and saddened to hear this. I enjoyed her work and will greatly miss her presence here.

Dear Annie. Kind, wise and wonderfully readable. A huge loss.

I didn't know her, but I'm very sorry to read of her passing. I greatly enjoyed her poems and comments here.