The Poet who started Poetry Live has died.
th lost hymn
to earth’s green blood
& sap
& slime
to hold back time…
let me here give praise & tongue
to your bright flesh & hair & bone
to mouth & nostril / salt & lime
to breast & belly & that cool line
from throat to thigh: to all yr mouths
& voices / winedeep / lovestung
to silken down beneath th sun / about
th nipple
& all along th length of supple spine…
so hold / time ! & let us stand
since we are naked &
th blood is up
stay your bitter hand !
- Dave Mitchell
(as posted on Facebook by an Auckland Poet).
http://davemitchellpoetry.blogspot.com/2011/06/dave.html
Editor
PoetryPosted by EditorPubished June 21, 2011 @ 1:03 pm
David's last published title:
Steal Away Boy: Selected Poems of David Mitchell - AUP
edited by Martin Edmond and Nigel Roberts
http://web.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/aup/book/2010/mitchell-selected-poems.cfm
Footnote:
Photographs can be viewed on this blog:- http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/2010/09/jacks-aussie-adventure.html
6 comments:
Let Auden give him his mihi (final stanza of “In Memory of W.B.Yeats”).
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Very sad news, but I am so pleased he saw his book getting plaudits and was there on the big screen with us for the launch.
sad day. mitchell was cool. jeff will remember canty arts festival '72. david stayed with us in mansfield ave. onstage mitchell embraced a belligerent drunk. calmed him & at th same time and gave us myths of woolloomooloo: ...i walked into th bar/ i looked pretty slick/ th barmaid looked at me & sd whos this prick. steal away david.
Hi Mike. I do recall David at that gig - we idolized him, a fair bit. I have dug out my old copy of Pipe Dreams in Ponsonby (one of THE great single volumes in the history of New Zealand poetry, I feel. It's up there with No Ordinary Sun).
Just an afterthought too, Mike: those pictures of David on the cover of Steal Away Boy are actually from that Christchurch Arts Festival gig in 1972.
I heard him recite in 1967 at the Barry Letts gallery. The Polish National Film unit were there. Mybe the footage still exists? What a sad loss he gave everything to poetry. Oscar Hassam Adelaide
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