Category: Vale

Vale Moya Costello

Join family & friends to commemorate the talented Australian writer, editor, teacher, wine critic & academic Moya Costello.

Come to a relaxed gathering at the Port Sorell Surf Life Saving Club by the sea that Moya loved so much.

Dress informal and bring your cozzies and sun hats, if you like.

Port Sorell Surf Life Saving Club, Hawley Beach, Tasmania

Vale Judith Mok

Sorry to learn of Judith Mok’s death last month. From The Hot Press Newsdesk – 28th November 2024

“Judith was a remarkable woman, a force of life, a powerhouse, with incredible life experience,” a statement from the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris reads.

Tributes are continuing to pour in for Judith Mok, following the sad news of the acclaimed classical singer, vocal coach and writer’s death this week.

Her passing was confirmed by her publisher, Antony Farrell of Lilliput Press, who stated in an online post that Judith “died on the morning of Monday 26th with her husband, writer Michael O’Loughlin, keeping vigil.”

“She was a doughty soul and personality, who bore her cancer fearlessly,” his statement continues.

(Sephardic song Addio Querido performed by Judith Mok and Mani Koshravesh in the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. Filmed by Oisin Byrne, 2020. From Judith Mok’s website).

‘I’D never quite met anyone like Judith before, and I found out afterwards, of course, that there was nobody like her,” says writer and poet Michael O’Loughlin. “We started talking on the first night we met, and we’re having that same conversation 29 years later. We find that we still argue about the same things!”

(from the Irish Independent, September 2011)

As a footnote, I was fortunate enough ten years ago to be introduced to Michael O’Loughlin at a Dedalus Press launch in Dublin. In retrospect, I wish I’d known more about his poetry at the time, might have enquired about his career as  ‘one of the few genuine, intellectual, working-class voices in Irish poetry’ (Poetry International). ‘Pleasure to meet you,’ I said, ‘I thought you played a great game against Collingwood last weekend.’ (Where’d that spring from? Regretted the words immediately.) Quick as a flash he shot back, very generously, with ‘Yes, I was quite pleased with my performance myself.’

Vale Hilary Mantel

British author Hilary Mantel, who won the Booker Prize twice for the first two books of her Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70.

I confess to not being familiar with her work, but her obituary speaks of her capacity for the historical novel—including the Wolf Hall trilogy wherein she writes of the 16th Century during the time of King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. (Hans Holbein the Younger painted the portraits of many characters of English history of this period including both King Henry VIII and Cromwell, hence my interest).

‘The Times’ remarks on her writing….

We hacks, even us literary ones, like to think of ourselves as a hard-bitten bunch, but the news that Hilary Mantel had died aged 70 knocked us back. What a woman, what a writer. Those of us who have read her Wolf Hall trilogy, all 2,000 pages, will feel it
particularly keenly. 

The Wolf Hall trilogy
It feels unlikely that there are many readers out there who haven’t yet been swept up by the bloody brilliance of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Across three hefty novels, Mantel conjured up the splendid, tyrannical court of Henry VIII through the shrewd eyes of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son from Putney who rose and rose to the King’s right hand. Until Mantel, history remembered Cromwell as a butcher but she made him real — brilliant, humane, ruthless. The trilogy comprises ‘Wolf Hall’ (2009), ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ (2012) and ‘The Mirror & the Light’ (2020).

It’s interesting though, to read—in the comments column accompanying ‘The Times’ article—the varied responses to news of her death. These range from

‘A tragic loss, she was a wonderful writer and not afraid of controversy’, to

‘she failed the basic test of the historical novelist, namely to portray convincingly the interior lives of people who lived a long time ago’, and

‘Patrick O’Brian is a far better master of history’, and

‘Her misrepresentation of St. Thomas More, who died for his beliefs at the hand of the murderous Henry VIII, is a prime example. I wonder how many readers of “Wolf Hall” came away believing More actually was the corrupt villain she created.’

Food for thought…. (Have ordered the first book of the trilogy through the library).

Vale Ray Stuart

VALE RAY STUART

Sad news. This from the Friendly Street Poets website:

Friendly Street is saddened to learn of the recent death of Ray Stuart.

Ray was a regular at Friendly Street for many years, making valuable contributions as poet and editor (co-editing Friendly Street Poetry Reader 24 with Jude Aquilina), Committee Member and Convenor.

His warmth, wisdom, humour and poetry will be sorely missed.

Friendly Street passes on its deepest condolences and sympathy to Ray’s wife, Heather, and family.

Ray had intended to launch his second collection of poems, High Mountainous Country – No Reliable Information (from local publisher, Forty Degrees South) in Hobart last week.

Ray Stuart

LANGUAGES

‘Ich weiss nichtwas soll es bedeutendass ich so traurig bin’

Heinrich Heine

 

Within the attic of my mind
in the furthest lit corner
an explanation of tenses
scattered French verbs
and a fragment of Caesar
in Cisalpine Gaul.
 
On the camphorwood chest
a blue folder signed off
in unmistakable English.
 
Through the dormer window
past a wind-moved tree
a shoreline in moonlight
where the Lorelei still sings,
but now on sandstone rocks
and to the tune of a steel guitar.

Vale Selwyn Pritchard

Saddened to learn poet Selwyn Pritchard passed away at the end of June. A lovely man … his poetry perhaps epitomised by a few words of intro that appear on his website: “I want poems which don’t distance themselves, hold aloof, poems about living against the background of collapsing democracy, religion, social life and the corporate greed which is ruining our world…Poems that matter! I try to write them if I can.”