NOTES

An email from Andrew Robinson, and a confirmation from Robert Sheppard, that Lee died at 12.10pm on July 26th.

Travers Rafe Lee Harwood
Born, Leicester June 6th.1939 : Died, Hove, July 26th.2015

Too many memories. Poet and worker.

+click
Happier Times: Lee, Gunnar Harding, me.
Colchester, around Christmastime 1968

Extracted from An Interview with Andy Brown

Andy Brown: Another theme that goes across your work is ‘decay’. Air Clamps even invokes decay: ‘And decay gradually eats at the structures… we hope’. What is all this decay about?
Lee Harwood: I’m not so sure what I meant by ‘decay’ in some of the earlier poems, but I do know that in the later poems, such as Air Clamps, it’s about being relieved; finding a pleasure in knowing that nothing is there forever. In that poem, the fancy building is going to fall down. All this grandeur has got its comeuppance eventually. There’s one other poem in Take a Card, Any Card, called Ikon, which ends up with an image of faded angels and an evolving mollusc. Creatures are continually evolving. We’re just a passing thing. There’s a marvelous book called The Earth: an Intimate History – these strata and the Earth’s crust are continually moving and changing and shunting around – and the author, Richard Fortey, says: ‘Mankind is no more than a parasitic tick, gorging himself on temporary plenty, while the seas are low and the climate comparatively clement. The present arrangement of land and sea will change, and with it our brief supremacy’. That thing about change; it’s a chastening thing for human arrogance. But it also means that, sometimes, one might feel that everything’s a total mess, but a couple of days later it will have all shifted.

Enitharmon Press note

The Guardian obituary, by Peter Robinson

The Argus, Brighton, obituary

Poetry Archive

Wikipedia

Kenneth Lee Irby

Born, Bowie, Texas November 18th 1936 : Died, Lawrence, Kansas July 30th 2015

A sad 4 a.m. drinking coffee, to get word from Steve Dickison of the death of Ken Irby, a poet whose presence seemed fixed. Whenever he lit in my memory the same two dominoes would flip, before else other. It’s late ’71 or early ’72, winter light and snow. Ted Greenwald, David Ball (and at one point Aram Saroyan) and I are driving with Harvey Brown from NYC to Franconia, NH to read. Bob Grenier is teaching up there. The story of that epic trip can only be properly told by Ted; but Ken was teaching at Tufts and he generously put us all up overnight. Going through his record collection he played us only Tibetan music and chants. That was my first meeting (other than by correspondence) with Ken. In an armchair with much Olson to hand. Drones, gongs, snow. Which tilts the second domino. Kent, Ohio, a little later in the 70s. We’re staying with the Dorns in their rented house. Ken comes by. Hilarity, drink, drugs. A fierce storm dumps feet of loose snow. For a forgotten reason I drive off towards the turnpike, heading back towards Bowling Green: and skid into a snowdrift. No cellphones in those days, but some hypersense after a couple of frozen hours brings Ken and Ed in a pick-up. I see this almost lion-head in silhouette as snow and ice are scraped from the windshield. Then more random memories flame up. I last saw Ken in Lawrence, where he’d returned to look after his mother, more than a decade ago. And I always thought he’d be there if I ever went back. I suppose he will.

Here’s a link to Steve Dickison’s morning message

Jacket has Irby material here and here.