It is very sad to hear of the death of Eric Booth Moodiecliffe, gentleman and artist. Eric was an extremely gentle and funny man and I for one will miss him greatly. He did suggest to me towards the end that his demise would add a fortune to the value of his paintings, so the owner of some of the more fabulous pieces, such as 'Midnight in Stavanger' painted in Eric's purple and green period, had better hang on to them.
Eric was full of surprises one of these being the fact that while a psychiatric nurse he looked after the famous American poet Robert Lowell, and calmed him during one of his manic phases with a huge and boring rendition of one of Moodiecliffe's own poems (which he could always recite off by heart, of course, no matter the size) called 'Time is a Thief'.
2 comments:
I love this piece.
Excuse my ignorance but presumably the narrator is reading Lowell's own work to him?
Does depression go with the territory of being a poet - so many seem to suffer from it. And then Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. I could try that I suppose but I don't know whether it would suddenly make my work sought after. All hail to Moodiecliffe and the purple and green period.
Actually it was Moodiecliffe's own poetry- enough to jolt anyone out of the manic state.
Since you may be a fan I will keep an eye out for any Moodiecliffes leaking out into the market: 'Midnight in lerwick' for instace, the companion piece to 'Midnight in Stavanger'.
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