Our mother, Ann Atkinson, who has died from a brain tumour aged 64, was a talented and passionate poet. She was poet laureate of the Peak District in 2008 and of Derbyshire from 2009 to 2011, recognition for a life spent writing, as well as encouraging others to write.
She was twice winner of the York poetry prize, had work included in many anthologies, and published two collections, Drawing Water (2009) and From Matlock to Mamelodi: 5,000 Miles of Poetry (2011). The latter was the result of a visit to the Mamelodi township in South Africawhich she described as "life-changing". She travelled with the Bright in the Corner musical dance theatre company as part of a cultural exchange to weave her words through dance, music and film.
Mum was a regular at literature festivals and the sound of her velvet, rhythmic voice reading her poetry will stay with all who heard her. A lover of music and a pianist herself, she worked as poet-in-residence with the Brodsky Quartet, after she was so moved by seeing them perform that she simply got out of her chair and asked them if they would have her.
She was born Ann Wharton in Sedgefield, County Durham and grew up in Billingham. As a child, she loved English, dance and drama, and the title poem of Drawing Water is about how much she enjoyed art at school. She trained to be a teacher at Alsager College of Education (now Manchester Metropolitan University). She moved, in 1968, with our father, Laurence Atkinson, to Sheffield, where she taught at Beaver Hill comprehensive school until 1974.
Ann lectured at Derby University from 1987 until 1994 and helped develop their creative writing programme. In 1994 she graduated from Manchester University with an MA in the writing and transmission of contemporary poetry. Then, she lectured in creative writing at Leeds, Sheffield and Derby universities between 1996 and 2008.
She ran various adult education classes in Sheffield and Wirksworth, as well as editing the literary magazine Staple. She loved working with students of all ages, in schools, children's homes and care homes; and through her energy and enthusiasm, taught people that they had something special to say – that they had poetry inside them.
She seemed to find inspiration everywhere, from a fleeting encounter with a motorist when they both stopped to let a stoat cross a Derbyshire road, to childhood memories, her family, love and loss, holidays, music and her feelings about getting older. During her laureateships she wrote about community, sport, and local trades and traditions. One of her poems is carved in gritstone on the Longshaw estate in Derbyshire; another is etched in glass at a community building in South Normanton.
Ann was the most wonderful mother, granny, friend, teacher, party-thrower, cook, storyteller, warm-welcomer, inspirer and encourager.
Our parents were divorced. She is survived by us, and by two grandsons, Lucas and Flynn.
