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The sudden death of Peter Isacké on Christmas night 2011 came as a great shock to members of Cannon Poets, who have lost one of our dwindling band of founder members. Peter was, without doubt, a ‘one off’, a man who seemed in many ways to belong to an earlier era. A bachelor of independent means, he was able to devote his life to the patronage of the arts, especially poetry, and to the nurturing of his faith within the Anglican Church. As a poet he achieved some published success, including Poems from Sutton Coldfield (1972), Poems from Australia (1982) and Calendar Poems (1989).

He is perhaps best known, however, for the Apple & Mirror Poetry Group series of readings, given at his home in Edgbaston, by some of the leading poets of the present day. These have included Fleur Adcock, Alan Brownjohn (who read one of Peter’s own poems at his funeral), David Constantine, Kevin Crossley Holland, Edwin Morgan, Anne Stevenson, Jo Shapcott, George Szirtes, Hugo Williams and many others.

Given to mood swings that troubled him as much as they did his friends, he was sometimes a difficult man to know, but he could be a lively, informative and generous companion. Occasionally we met for lunch, in places as varied as the County Ground, during an England v West Indies Test Match, or the Cheltenham Literary Festival where, on one occasion, his guest was Anne Stevenson, known equally for her fine poetry and Bitter Flame, her biography of Sylvia Plath. She was then living in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester and regaled us with anecdotes about her neighbour, resident in Rupert Brooke’s ‘Old Vicarage’, one Jeffrey Archer.

Peter’s own poems reflected his character. They could be quirky and humorous or solemn and moving. Some were idiosyncratic: ‘Jesus means Love and is very important to me – / He is my family and my Saviour! / He cares for my dog, Norman....’ (‘Jesus Christus’.) Others personal and emotive: ‘My father, late my father / we have passed along this swell / talking after a cottage fire /and watched bats fly through dusk colours / as salmon leap once again – / have heard river talking to distant crows....’ (‘Netherdale Father Poem’.)

Although only an occasional visitor to Cannon Poets in recent years, Peter remained loyal to the group and greatly interested in our activities. His passing will be a significant loss to poetry and to the cultural life of Birmingham.

                                                                                                                                               John Alcock