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  #61  
Unread 05-07-2019, 02:47 PM
Siham Karami Siham Karami is offline
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So saddened by this news and sorry to have missed it when it was first posted. I haven’t been so active here of late, and when I did stop by, i didn’t see it. When I first was looking at the sphere before joining (indebted to Gail White for telling me about it), I saw John’s photo among those who were “old hands” at Able Muse, and he looked so kind, I felt ok, let me check this place out. Indeed, his unique humor and kind attitude towards others always put me in a positive mood. His poetry—nothing like it! May he always be remembered for these good things and his honesty too. I am saddened even though I never met him in person, as if I’ve lost an old friend. My condolences to the family.
Siham
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  #62  
Unread 05-10-2019, 11:13 AM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Hello All,

For anyone who can make it, these are the arrangements for our John's send-off:

The funeral service will take place at Barham Crematorium Chapel at 12:40 pm on Wednesday 22nd May, followed by a buffet reception from 1:45 pm at The Millers Arms (2 Mill Lane, St. Radigunds, Canterbury CT1 2AW). There is a public car park very near the latter venue.
Barham Crematorium (CT4 6QU) is 9.6 miles (a twenty minute drive) from Canterbury, using the A2 to Dover.

A further update:
No flowers, please, but any donations would be appreciated, in John's name, to: Pilgrim's Hospice, 56 London Road, Canterbury, Kent CT2 8JA or online at www.pilgrimshospices.org

I hope to see some of you there.

Jayne
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  #63  
Unread 05-10-2019, 06:30 PM
Terese Coe Terese Coe is offline
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I was thrilled to go up to John's 2012 Sarah Lawrence reading organized by Joey de Jesus and Walter Ancarrow, and we got on delightfully, as if we'd known each other forever. This is a terrible loss for all of us who loved him and his incomparable poems. I'm not even trying to "process" the loss, which is what I do: keep it at arm's length till I'm ready. Now that the funeral arrangements have been posted, it became more real. I wish for a riderless horse for him.

ps I treasure Gregory Dowling's 2008 Whitworth retrospective in The Chimaera, part of which I've posted below because I too am a "miser of my past." Without memory, where would we be? Not here.

*In Writing Poetry he concludes the second chapter, with its challenging title “What Is Poetry?”, by quoting Philip Larkin:

I came to the conclusion that to write a poem was to construct a verbal device that would preserve an experience indefinitely by reproducing it in whoever read the poem.

Whitworth clearly adheres to this view of poetry (he adds that “Preserving experience is hard and doesn’t leave too much time for anything else”). It is why memory plays so important a role in his poetry; as the speaker says, with only slight irony, in the last poem in his first volume: “I am a miser of my past, / Telling it over in a room.” And with perhaps slightly more irony, he declares in “And For My Next Trick”: “I’m two-thirds / Pissed on memory.” Although he preserves a wry awareness of the possible distortions of nostalgia (”The dinky toys of retrospect, the minikin / Machines of souvenir”, as he puts it in “Et In Arcadia Potter”), the remembered past remains his greatest source of material. And even when writing about the present day, and the tiny daughter who is about to “remainder” him, he includes reminiscences of his own mother.*

Last edited by Terese Coe; 05-10-2019 at 06:47 PM.
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  #64  
Unread 05-12-2019, 02:44 AM
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Ann Drysdale Ann Drysdale is offline
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See Jayne's post, below and at #62.

Last edited by Ann Drysdale; 05-12-2019 at 07:34 AM. Reason: checking... checked.
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  #65  
Unread 05-12-2019, 06:44 AM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Please see further update at post #62, if you would like to make a donation, in John's name, to a charity he supported and which supported him and the family. Thank you.

Jayne
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  #66  
Unread 05-12-2019, 05:12 PM
David Anthony David Anthony is offline
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I'll be there, DV.
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  #67  
Unread 05-22-2019, 04:09 PM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Just to let you all know, John's funeral went off very well today, with beautiful warm sunny weather to enhance the proceedings. After the service everyone talked for a while on a terrace overlooking a breath-taking view, before going back to a pub for the wake. It was a nice send-off.

It was lovely to meet John's wife and daughters, and his 9-month-old grandson, who was a smiling little treasure all day.

People are organising other things involving John in the coming months, which we'll get to hear about in due course.

Jayne
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  #68  
Unread 05-22-2019, 05:06 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Thank you, Jayne.
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  #69  
Unread 05-22-2019, 06:05 PM
Bill Carpenter Bill Carpenter is offline
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Rest in peace, Poet.
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  #70  
Unread 05-22-2019, 07:50 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Thank you, Jayne.
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