Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

It is with a personal sense of loss that I report the death of James Brockway. We met, as with so many other poets, through the post, James having subscribed to the magazine and taking an active interest in its contents. So active, in fact, he came over from Holland, where he has lived since the nineteen forties, and found his way to Brixham. Thus started a friendship based on poetry, food, wine and mutual enjoyment of each other’s company.

   I found James’ own poetry had a simplicity and musicality often missing in much contemporary verse; yet he touched on deep concepts, on love, life and death – in later years often thinking about his own demise. Though having work published in his early years, he wrote mainly in the final twenty years of his life, coming back to poetry which he had always loved but was for years too reticent to publish. Despite this silence, he had read widely and was in touch with what was happening to poetry in the UK – some of which he found distasteful to his sensitive and aesthetic approach. But he was a generous-spirited man who gave much to others: to those Dutch poets he translated and spent tireless hours finding homes for their work in British and American magazines; to British magazines which he approved of, buying gift subscriptions for friends, and extra copies to give away; above all, generous to poets with whom he found a common cause. To these scribblers he sent wonderful letters of detailed criticism and personal encouragement.

   Though in later years he felt increasingly isolated through living in Holland, he never lost his sense of humour and self-deprecation. Even throughout this last year I would receive chirpy telephone calls and though it was obvious he was growing ever frailer, he maintained an optimistic outlook. Knighted for services to literature by the Dutch government in 1997, he will be remembered both as a poet and fine translator.