Clive James’ Final Autumn: A Poet’s Farewell Told Through a Japanese Maple

October 7, 1939

Dearest readers,

On this day, the literary world welcomed Clive James, an Australian-born British critic, poet, novelist, and memoirist known for his sharp wit and elegant prose.

His unique voice first caught the public’s attention in 1972 as a television critic for The Observer, dazzling readers with his humor and intelligence that could cut through any subject with grace.

But it was in the later chapters of his life that Clive’s poetic soul spoke most poignantly. In 2010, after his diagnosis with emphysema and leukemia, his writing took on the tender urgency of an earthly farewell.

One of the most touching moments came in 2014 when his daughter gifted him a tree—a Japanese maple—which became a symbol of life, hope, and fleeting beauty in his final years.

Clive captured his journey through illness and love for that tree in a heartfelt poem titled Japanese Maple.

Here is a glimpse of the soul laid bare as he braces to live to see the tree’s leaves turn flame in autumn:

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.
That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same.

The poem speaks not only of a tree’s colors but of the fragile urgency of living fully amidst the slow retreat of health.

Clive James spent several autumns surrounded by that glorious maple before he died in 2019, leaving behind a legacy of wit, wisdom, and a final, fiery farewell in verse.