Sad ModPo news: Anthony Watkins is gone

Having heard just now from Suzanne of the passing this morning of our beloved ModPo colleague Anthony Watkins, and with Suzanne’s permission, I am sharing this very sad news. Put simply, Anthony was the most active and most engaged member of the ModPo community across the whole history of our gathering. He loved poetry (and wrote at least a half dozen poems daily, even—especially—during the months of his illness), but if there’s anything he loved more it was conversation—over virtual coffee, on ethical and political topics, across differences. He especially liked to talk across differences. He described himself for me as “uneducated” (which was not true, but that was his modesty) and a “self-taught” poet. He could never quite believe that he was helping to teach a poetry course to people worldwide, but in fact that is exactly what he set himself to do, and did. 

Anthony posted the “hopelessly lost” thread each week for more than a decade. And now it is we who are hopelessly lost.