Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

Funeral Oration for Cobbing
(11th October 2002)
[One of a number of orations and/or performances made on the day by friends and colleagues]
Bob Cobbing was among the most outstanding of human beings; his influence is great. Many who
were out of sympathy with his poetry because it was not like theirs will be forgotten; he will not.
Bob Cobbing changed and expanded poetry; and he encouraged others to do likewise. He gave
people confidence. He changed the way we read and the way we perform. Few have done more.
Two days before he died, aware of his situation, he declared himself happy.
He did not welcome his death; but he did accept it.
His loss is total and irreparable, but it is beyond us. What we are doing here is for us; and I am still
looking to accept that he has died. He was, as always, before me.
I’ve written quite a lot about Bob in my time, and even more with him; but just now I feel so
overwhelmed by loss that little seems to move in me. It is a kind of winter. I am at my coldest, and
frost gives way to further deeper frost even if it seems to be getting lighter. I need more time to
write an appropriate poem to Bob.
That last time I saw him, he asked how long Eric Mottram had been in hospital during his final
illness. When I told him, he said, ‘I’ve beaten him’ with some satisfaction, though I am sure it was
also a kind of joke. They figured large in each other’s artistic lives and held each other in high
regard. They quite loved each other, though they wouldn’t have expressed it like that.
I am going to read the last few lines of my own poem addressed posthumously to Eric Mottram.
The landscape is Cornish Spring rather than English autumn, but the need and my obvious answer
are the same.
The ship has almost gone... It’s sinking fast
beneath the blue on bluer horizon...
Loe Bar’s quite empty,
Porthleven tiny
what there is of it showing round Penrose;
and the grass is thick, rushing green about me;
and the sea’s rolling smoothly ultramarine;
It’s time for this to end.
Three largish dogs have tumbled up
and formed a hopeful line.
They face me now, certain I shall assert
that it exists and is the world’s centre,