"Patricia Goedicke, 75, whose poetry won national accolades and whose work as a university professor helped build a nest for writers in the northern Rocky Mountain town of Missoula, Mont., died of pneumonia July 14 at St. Patrick Hospital there. She also had lung cancer.

The dark-eyed, dramatic poet wrote 12 books of verse, the most recent one, "As Earth Begins to End," recognized as one of the top 10 poetry books of 2000 by the American Library Association. A decade earlier, "The Tongues We Speak" was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Her work, rich in emotion, memorable rhythms and human relations, attracted a following of younger poets at the University of Montana, where she was first a poet-in-residence and then took poet Richard Hugo's academic position after his death in 1982."

I met Patricia only briefly, a few years ago at the Skagit River Poetry Festival. She was a lovely woman and poet. A loss.

full story at Washington Post dot com.