FRIENDS of a well-known Oxford poet are trying to raise the money to give him a proper send-off.

David MacArnold, better known in poetry circles as Davy Mac, died at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital on November 19, aged 63.

His close friend Andrea Berryman said he had been fighting prostate cancer for the last year.

His poetry drew on his 18 years in the Army, his struggles being a gay soldier, and his time living rough.

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In June this year he made it through to the National Poetry Slam Final, to be held in a loading bay underneath London’s Royal Albert Hall.

He would have been the oldest contestant there, but because of his illness he never made it.

Miss Berryman, a close friend and fellow writer, said: “He was a brilliant poet and he liked being around people.”

She described him as “strongly left wing”, and joked: “We nearly got chucked out of a few pubs when our debates got too heated.”

But she said he left no assets, and now she and other friends are trying to find funds to give him the funeral he deserved.

Born into a poor family in Glasgow, he moved to Newcastle when he was still young.

He told the Oxford Mail he had followed his father’s footsteps and joined the army when he was 15, later serving in the Royal Corps of Signals in Germany, Ireland, England and the Falklands after the conflict, earning the rank of corporal.

But he said he came out as gay and was forced to leave under a cloud.

Unemployed, he moved to Amsterdam, where he said he got into drink and drugs, ending up homeless and then getting into trouble and serving a jail term in Japan for drug smuggling.

He ended up winning a Prisoners Abroad creative writing competition, and when he was released and returned to London, teamed up with homelessness charity Crisis, which helped him find shelter and for which he ran creative writing workshops.

Miss Berryman said Mr MacArnold had married young, but he spoke little of his early life to friends in Oxford and was not in touch with his family.

He came to Oxford in 2011 to take a creative writing course at Ruskin, and started going to poetry slams.

Miss Berryman said the council flat he found in Headington was the first real home he had had in years.

If you would like to help, contact reporter Pete Hughes on 01865 425431.

A conversation with a rock

AN extract from A Conversation with a Rock by Davy Mac:
I am a rock. I am an Island.
Part of the heart of a star recycled,
a mountain ground down by time and tide
washed up on a desolate shore.
I’m the joke you always tell
when you introduce me as your pet.
‘This is Audrey, my pet rock.
Much less trouble than a cat or a dog
except every hundred years or so
when she comes into heat
and dribbles lava all over the floor.’
Yes, I’m a rock; an Island in a stream
of energy, part of the heart of a star, recycled
plasma, to magma, to molten lava.
A mountain ground down by time and tide
to an overgrown pebble, washed up
on an angry shore.
And the joke you always tell
when you introduce me as your pet?
Oh yes, I’m a joke alright,
but no one’s got it yet.

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