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Max thanks -sounds a good old friend -captured his spirit P -----Original Message----- From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Max Richards Sent: 22 January 2008 19:37 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: snap: Graham Percy Graham Percy, 1938-2008 I hear from London my old friend Graham, seldom encountered since our student days, has died leukaemia (in remission, said his emails), finally unremitting. When an artist dies, you think Œwell, how much he left behind him.¹ when so much of the work is in books, Œhow widely available, how good.¹ His children¹s books everywhere live on, helping attune decades of young ones to delicate colour, gentle humour, pigs, elephants, a new 'Wind in the Willows'. I just googled 'Hugo the Hippo'! animated in Hungary back in the 70s, music by The Osmonds; thanks to YouTube, now we can sample it at home! 'Arthouse', for adults, he showed me in proof, bound to become a classic, I reckoned. Every room a quiet homage to a favourite great artist (where¹s my copy?). His ŒExpatriate New Zealand Artist¹ stands weighed down by the monstrous Kiwi he carries on his back: nocturnal, flightless emblem* of our country which we left. We soldiered together there, thanks to conscription; put together a student annual meant to be ribald, turned out, thanks to Graham, most elegant. He showed me the pavement, just outside Green Park tube, where his heart stopped, he died, briefly, and had it started again. After that a man lives seriously. In his hospital bed he was seen to frown, his hands moving over the sheet. Did he need morphine? No, he said, he was just working out a drawing.* 22 January 2008 Max Richards Doncaster, Vic (*obituary by Peter Campbell, The Independent 13 Jan 08)