Vale Ron Pretty - tributes

from Pitt Street Poetry:

It with deep sadness that we share the news that Australian poet Ron Pretty passed away peacefully on Friday 30th June. Ron has been a towering figure in Australian poetry for more than fifty years.

As founder and publisher of Five Islands Press he published over 230 books by Australian poets, an achievement commemorated by the annual Ron Pretty Prize. Over the years, Ron has been a role model, friend and mentor for many of Australia's finest poets. His textbook Creating Poetry is an essential handbook, now in its 3rd edition and still widely used in creative writing courses across the country.

Here at Pitt Street Poetry we know him best as a practising poet, producing some of his finest work in a late flowering over the last decade. We published two new collections, What the Afternoon Knows in 2013 and The Left Hand Mirror in 2017, followed by 101 Poems in 2022, a timely survey collection of 'greatest hits', launched last August by fellow poet Peter Frankis at the South Coast Writers Centre - which Ron helped to found so many years ago.

Sitting here bleeding ink again tonight,
I know this is another letter I will not send.
Sleep well, old friend: I'll never find the words,
But my love, my care is with you always.

Ron Pretty. 'Letter, unsent'