{"id":44032,"date":"2026-08-24T06:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T18:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=44032"},"modified":"2026-08-23T20:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:45:11","slug":"vale-riemke-ensing-1939-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2026\/08\/24\/vale-riemke-ensing-1939-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Vale Riemke Ensing, 1939 – 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was deeply saddened to learn of the recent loss of poet Riemke Ensing, whom I met through the Tuesday Poem blog community (2010 – 2015.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Riemke Ensing; Photo credit: James Ensing-Trussell<\/p><\/div>\n

I loved Riemke’s poetry and enjoyed meeting her in person at the WORDChristchurch festival in 2012 — she had a great sense of fun, as well as a great love of poetry and art.<\/p>\n

On December 18, 2012, I posted Riemke’s poem, O Lucky Man<\/em>, as my Tuesday Poem feature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I post it again today, in her memory:<\/p>\n

O lucky man<\/span><\/h4>\n

Eight or nine small poems before breakfast, you record.<\/span>
\nOh lucky man! Here it\u2019s a wonder<\/span>
\nthere\u2019s any writing at all with the light slowly failing<\/span>
\nand such clouds inexorably dark across the moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rilke had one of his characters admit to maybe ten good lines<\/span>
\nat the end of a long life. It has to be better than that<\/span>
\nbut everyday the horizon is closing in \u2014<\/span>
\n\u2018life\u2019 and \u2018art\u2019 \u2014 the two unequal parts of the equation<\/span>
\nnever finding the balance to make that perfect symmetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

This morning though, three blackbirds<\/span>
\nat the bowl of persimmons on the outside table.<\/span>
\nPoem enough itself<\/span>
\nand a Chinese painting to break the fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Riemke Ensing<\/span>
\nFrom: O lucky man<\/em><\/strong> by Riemke Ensing, Otakou Press, 2009.<\/p>\n

Reproduced here with permission<\/p>\n

You may also enjoy Riemke’s poem, Transport<\/em><\/a>, featured on The Tuesday Poem Hub, also in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was deeply saddened to learn of the recent loss of poet Riemke Ensing, whom I met through the Tuesday Poem blog community (2010 – 2015.) I loved Riemke’s poetry and enjoyed meeting her in person at the WORDChristchurch festival in 2012 — she had a great sense of fun, as well as a great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44033,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032\/revisions\/44033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}