Gerry Loose 1948 to 30th April 2024

Last Letter to Gerry Loose 11th May 2024 – an extract

Dear Gerry,

How dare you die before me! We had an agreement that whoever died first, the survivor would cut up the dead body and take it to a mountain top to decay and become carrion for crows and other birds of prey. My knees are not up for climbing now.  I need to renege on our plan.  I never expected you to die first, since I’m a few years your elder, but you’ve always been my writing mentor, and my first publisher with your stunning magazine Haiku Byways and later simply Byways, made with your hand operated letter press – a proud craftsman always and all ways from printing to gardening to building to editing with your big worker hands, callused and strong.

You’ve been in my life ever since I was reborn and rescued from the claws of the USA – a fugitive in London hiding under the wings of an English artist so I wouldn’t be extradited back to the San Jose to serve a five-year prison sentence. We lived in the same building on Frognal London NW3 at the end of the 1960ies. You and Cate in the basement. We were upstairs. Proximity made it easy for us to become life-long friends. With your encouragement, I started writing haiku and haibun. You handprinted a limited edition of my poem Not In America with an etching by Pat Buckley, the woman I loved at that time and who agreed to marry me so I could legally stay in the UK. During those London years, we played with Bob Cobbing, whooped with Jerome Rothenburg at the Serpentine Gallery – do you remember? And George Oppen at Central London Poly.

I was 24 when we first met, and you were only 20 – already steeped in zen and poetry, publishing an international literary magazine. Re-reading your article in Byways 3 & 4, I am inspired again by the depth of your understanding and appreciation of haiku and/or senryu:

                                                believing

                                                tomorrow will come –

                                                all go to sleep                                                 

Gerry died on the 29th April – probably a heart attack while walking his dog “Livey” in the woods on the Isle of Bute. The funeral will be at Greenock Crematorium at 2pm on Friday 17th May. It is close to Greenock West train station. There will be a mini-wake/funeral tea afterwards in a place just across the road. No flowers, but donations without any pressure to http://www.treesforlife.org.uk or http://www.map.org.uk . There will be a collection for MAP on the day.

Living Our Dying films – 7th May Demystifying Death Week

John Donne “It is an astonishment to be alive, and it behooves us to be astonished“
Death is always with us: your death, a friend or relative’s death, a neighbour, death of a species. The book Living Our Dying explores many ways of getting ready.
I dedicated this evening to my oldest and one of my closest friend’s Gerry Loose who died a week ago. Here’s one of his poems published in Living Our Dying:

spell for the untimely dead

the small & the wild
the undisclosed & the overlooked

the curlew pulling the rain along

the dust that the saw brings forth
the unwavering & patient line of the saw

you are seen

Gerry Loose (from Printed on Water – page 93)

Other contributers to Living Our Dying no longer with us:

Sheila Templeton – co-editor of Living our Dying
Billy Bonar
Ruby McCann
Brian Whittingham
Janet Paisley
Sandy Hutchison
Lee Grushuny
David Donnison

The film Die-a-log was made by Shantiketu one of original members of the Die-a-log group – based on interviews with a few founding members. The group has been meeting in Glasgow since 2011. And at last count there are now 9 such groups around the UK. David Donnison and I started compiling the anthology Living Our Dying in 2014. I was with David when he died in 2018 and I promised him that I would finish the book. And Sheila Templeton, also a die-a-logger stepped in to co-edit. The film The Last Companion was made by Lin Li, another member of the Die-a-log group, and is based on a true story about a woman who accompanies another woman she doesn’t know to Switzerland to die.

Another event to celebrate Sheila Templeton

Bonnie Fechter: A Celebration of Sheila Templeton
9th June @ 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm in Kelvinside Parish Church