Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Stephen Oliver pays tribute to Warren Dibble

RENDEZVOUS

for Warren Dibble


You gave me back my words. A reminder.
Your voice I knew immediately. My words gave me
pause, half recalled, how could it be otherwise?

I heard them in a different register,
as if for the first time, remade. They had all gathered,
those words, in spontaneous,

mass demonstration, shoulder-to-shoulder,
to make a rendezvous. Whether this was expectation or
conclusion, greeting, or decisive farewell,

in a town square, down highway, for one moment,
I could not tell, those words, disowned, independent.

Given back to me within the single minded
character of your voice, tremulous, through the cable
beneath the Tasman Sea.

The phone call reversed its charge and two poems
informed me newly. Then you hung up.
Nothing more needed saying. A gift.

Stephen Oliver

“Warren Dibble 1931-2014—playwright, poet, Burns Fellow, University of Otago 1969—lived in Sydney for over four decades. Warren removed himself from the literary circus years ago. Comfortably into his early 80s, he continued to write but did not publish. Warren was one of the wittiest men I had ever met. His poetry and other writings are as good as any writer who has achieved genuine acclaim in NZ letters, past or present. Vale”

2 comments:

Karen R said...

Not sure if this is a double post.... Does anyone have a link to a Warren Dibble poem that was used in his obituary years back.. I cut it out and over the years misplaced it. Begins something like..."It will be an ordinary day ""

Karen R said...

I am trying to find the Warren Dibble poem which begins something like ..."it will be an ordinary day.. and talk of a day without end... it was listed in his obituary in the ODT and I cut it out and later lost it. If anyone has a reference to where I can find it... I would appreciate it. Thankyou