In memory of Sue Dymoke

Anthony Wilson, , , ,
A portrait of the late poet and educationalist Sue Dymoke

My dear friend and colleague, the poet, teacher and academic Sue Dymoke has died.

Though she had been ill for some time, the news came to me (comes to me) as a great shock. I cannot get used to talking about her in the past tense.

We first met, at the turn of the millennium, at the Royal Festival Hall. Jean Sprackland had gathered a group of poet-educators to put some teaching materials together for the nascent Poetry Archive. I knew immediately that I had found someone on my wavelength, whose poetic, pedagogic and academic identities were fully blurred. I went home knowing I had finally met another unicorn.

Sue and I worked on several projects together: the ESRC-funded Poetry Matters series and subsequent books, both with Andrew Lambirth and Myra Barrs; a poetry pedagogy symposium in Porto, also with Andrew, as well as Janine Certo and Laura Apol; a poetry anthology with Unbound, the not-quite-funded (but still amazing) No One You Know, featuring poets talking about their ‘secret- weapon-poems’; and latterly Young Poets’ Stories, funded by the Foyle Foundation, on the writing lives of prizewinning young poets.

It was Sue’s energy and attention to detail that got these projects going and over the line.

Young Poets’ Stories coincided, almost to the day, with the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, which meant that we conducted nearly the entire project online. Coming from different corners of the country, we had previously met up at the British Library, queuing in its chilly courtyard before bagging one of the cafe tables where we took it upon ourselves to compare stationery and cake products, accompanied by more than the legally safe limit of flat whites.

What else can I tell you about her?

She was generous. Every single young poet we had been working with said the same thing: ‘She was so encouraging. She made me feel I could do anything.’

She was utterly merciless at table tennis.

She loved gardening, cooking, birds, and Chelsea football club.

She had a great giggle.

I miss not swapping poetry and academic gossip with her, and (mostly) moaning about Chelsea.

She was the best fun – and now she is not here.

Our dissemination plans for Young Poets’ Stories will still go ahead, albeit delayed by her passing. We still hope to involve our two UNESCO Cities of Literature, Nottingham and Exeter, in planning events which will celebrate the lives of young poets in those locales. And the book we have planned with Bloomsbury, co-written by our amazing young particpants, is still very much in the pipeline.

I owe Sue so much – and am grateful that I got to share these projects and memories with her. Her legacy within teaching, education, and poetry is unquestioned as it is undimmed. But this is first and foremost a personal loss, one that everyone who knew Sue will feel deeply.

UKLA International Research Conference, Exeter, June 2023

You can find moving tributes from those who knew Sue, including her partner David Belbin, here:

by Andrew Lambirth from UKLA here;

her obituary in the Guardian, by David Almond here;

and by Patrick Limb, from Nottingham City of Literature, here.

You can watch a beautiful film of one of Sue’s poems, made by Rebecca Goldsmith, here:

Published by Anthony Wilson

I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, is available now from Blue Diode Publishing. My current research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.

15 Comments

  1. That’s a sweet tribute Anthony. I didn’t know Sue, but knew of her work supporting poetry in schools/education, and of course her colaborration with you. She was one of the few – perhaps the only one (!) – who made a professional comment (and a positive one) on my poetry teaching text ‘Poems in Your Pocket’. I have read a number of other tributes and she was clearly widely respected and loved.

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    1. Hi Mike. Really appreciate you commenting on this post. Sue was great. She has left a huge legacy and impact upon English teaching and teachers. Not least in the area of poetry pedagogy. I’m lucky to have known her. She really was loved as you say. X and best, Anthony

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  5. Pingback: Sue Dymoke: poet, teacher, partner: 1962-2023. – David Belbin

  6. Dear Anthony

    I’m so sorry that you have lost such a dear friend and colleague. Your tribute to her is beautiful. My condolences to you, to her partner and to all who loved and admired her.

    Nancy x

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  9. Thank you for this tribute, Antony. I didn’t know Sue very well, but did have contact with her as a poet and educator; it’s good to learn a little more from what you’re written here. She gave an inspirational session to my student English teachers around the year 2000, and I ran into her in poetry world at various times. She seemed to me a lovely person, unpretentious and always committed to the importance of creative expression in education and in life. And I love the quiet power of her poems.

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    1. Thank you so much for saying so, Alex. That’s exactly right, Sue was unpretentious and always looking to share what she loved with others. I miss her enormously. With very best wishes,
      Anthony

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