Sunday, July 5, 2020

Harry R. Wilkens 1945-2020

Harry R. Wilkens was born in 1945 in the French/American garrison town of Kaiserslautern (in the former French Occupation Zone of Germany), nicknamed “K-Town” by the American GIs. He was always hanging around with American and especially French soldiers. While many of his schoolpals left for the USA, he remained in Europe, mostly in French-speaking countries. Wrote newspaper articles and poetry in German and French and published from 1977 to 1981 in Bavaria the anarchist quarterly Conflict. Background journalist in Athens from 1984 to 1987. Has been living since 1991 in Geneva and continues to write his poetry directly into his familiar “GI-English” for many zines all over the world and several chapbooks, like The Hit Man (also in Arabic), Terre Promise, Zombies (bilingual), Pig’s Hell, Un autre monde, Abyss (English/Greek) and the first three versions of Piss Talks (one of them in English/Korean). In 1997, along with others, he founded the Docker Movement for free, non-adademic poetry accessible to everybody and was the editor of the Dockernet newsletter.

"[...] ont la douleur de vous faire part du décès de Harry Wilkens, survenu le jeudi 2 juillet 2020 à son domicile à Genève.
Une cérémonie religieuse aura lieu le mardi 7 juillet à 13h30 à Genève, dans la chapelle du Centre funéraire Saint-Georges (Lancy), suivie de l'inhumation du défunt dans le cimetière Saint-Georges. L'office sera assuré en anglais par le révérend Andy Willis (Eglise luthérienne évangélique de Genève).
En raison de l'épidémie de Covid-19, nous remercions les personnes désireuses d'assister à la cérémonie de se munir d'un masque de protection et de se présenter 20 minutes avant le début de la cérémonie (13h10) au centre funéraire.
Nous vous remercions tous chaleureusement pour vos condoléances et tous vos témoignages d'affection."





Thanks to Norman J. Olson for letting me know.