Death of a Poet and Humanitarian

 

R.I.P.

It takes me an hour after waking

to remember last night’s news. 

In that time I hugged the cat,

had breakfast, read a new chapter

of the current novel, reviewed

my shopping list in my head,

worked out what day of the week this is …

and suddenly, somehow, memory

rises like a sudden spectre – 

oh no, Allan’s dead. 

Last night I cried, sent messages 

to a few people who would want 

(and not want) to know, lit a candle, 

spoke a prayer, removed

his photo from my healing grid …

‘Death is the greatest healer,’

my Reiki Master always said.  

There is nowhere else to go

with this. Perhaps I’ll re-read

his poems – again – or perhaps

not just yet. There's a day to encounter;

ordinary, practical things to be done.

I'd looked forward to showing him 

the two books, so soon to be released,

in which he features. At least 

he knew they were happening. 

‘He wanted to go

swiftly when it was time,’

his friend told me, ‘and he did.’

30/9/23

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2023

When I wrote my memoir* about running poetry workshops in Pentridge Prison back in the eighties, I didn’t identify particular prisoners I mentioned, but used labels such as ‘Tallest’ and ‘Youngest’ in order to protect their privacy. (Not that I had anything bad to say about them. My experience of them and with them was one of friendship and respect.)

One man I called ‘Mr Outstanding,’ because the visiting poets agreed that his powerful work was the most outstanding of all the amazing poetry being written there. He was finally freed many years ago, and since then has quietly done much good in the world, e.g. working to help the homeless and the disadvantaged.

One of the visiting poets who formed a friendship with this man, and kept in close touch with him all these years since, emailed me a few days ago to tell me he had just died, in hospital after a fall. He was 68 years old.

So I can tell you now (what readers of my memoir who were involved in those prison visits will easily guess) that he was Allan Eric Martin, whose book, Spitting Out Sixpenny, was published in 1984. He also had poems in various literary magazines, notably Overland. 

A serious poet with a true vocation, he was happy to give me permission to republish his particular poems in a new edition of Blood from Stone, the prison anthology first published in 1982 under my then imprint, Abalone Press. In his private life he was indeed a very private person, but he was happy to be known through his honest and revealing poetry.

We who liked and admired him are sad now.

I had been so looking forward to sending him the new edition of Blood from Stone, as well as my memoir and spin-off chapbook which are to be released simultaneously. I try to console myself with the thought that it would have been painful for him to revisit those difficult times. (A last-minute delay in the printing of the memoir is the only reason he didn't already have the books. The progress of this whole project has seemed blessed by the Universe; perhaps I may trust that this apparent glitch just at this time has been for the best too.)

Despite his earlier problems and mistakes, for most of Allan's life he was a man of great integrity.

* Breaking Into Pentridge Prison: Memories of Darkness and Light, to be launched in November 2023, along with the prison poetry anthology Blood from Stone (2nd ed.) and the chapbook Letters to a Dead Man.