TRIBUTES FOR BELOVED POET

ONE of Tasmania’s most revered poets, Tim Thorne, has been remembered as a master of his craft who leaves behind an “almost immeasurable legacy”.

The Launceston-based Mr Thorne died on Thursday after battling an illness. He was 77.

A key figure in the Australian poetry scene, Mr Thorne – who was a former columnist for the Mercury – founded the Tasmanian Poetry Festival in 1985.

Sixteen years later, he handed the reins to fellow poet Cameron Hindrum. Mr Hindrum described Mr Thorne as a mentor and someone who was “always a huge champion of Tasmanian writing”.

“He was a master of form,” Mr Hindrum said. “So he was a big one for metered rhymes – so lines of a certain length with a certain metre.

“And he was very, very powerful at being able to coordinate that into really quite long and involved poetic work. He was also very incisive. He absolutely had his finger on the political pulse.

“His work very much held a kind of mirror up to society, if that’s not a cliche. He didn’t pull any punches.”

Mr Hindrum said Mr Thorne was among Australia’s finest poets.

“There’s no doubt that he leaves an enormous, almost immeasurable legacy and an impossible hole to fill, quite frankly,” he said.

Bass Labor MHA Michelle O’Byrne paid tribute to Mr Thorne in state parliament, saying the arts community would be mourning his death.