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Death of a poet
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Friday, April 15, 2005 |
| My friend calls me to tell me that Julia Darling has died. Of course we were all expecting it - reading her fantastic blog http://www.juliadarling.co.uk/weblog/has been an obssession with lots of people recently - but still it hits you, the finality. Most recent posting has one of her last poems, End,a real beauty with an unforgettable image of the poet slipping onto a horse whilst her life here folds away like the cardboard images in a child's pop up book. It's such a perfect image. That, and the light from an English teatime, after rain. I hope she's somewhere wonderful, free from pain and restored to beauty - she was gorgeous - the first time I saw her at a party in my house in Jesmond in the early 80s, her hair long then. She was a lovely woman - and her dying was inspiring in a weirdly uplifting way. My friend and I, we talk about death, worry about who will go first like an old married couple. We want to be as brave as Julia. We worry about never seeing each other again, never seeing our families, lovers, gardens, rivers, trees .. it's a long list. But then Saul Bellow talking to Martin Amis in an old interview I watched after his death last week - how much he was looking forward to seeing his parents in the afterlife - but then reflecting "Eternity is a long time". Yeah right. How soon would you get sick of each other? |
| 6:30 AM
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