The household of a British poet who disappeared final weekend from a music pageant in England was in mourning after a physique was discovered following a virtually weeklong search that drew nationwide headlines and intense curiosity on social media.
The poet, Gboyega Odubanjo, 27, was final seen on the Shambala music pageant in Kelmarsh, England, about 85 miles north of London, round 4 a.m. on Saturday. Mr. Odubanjo had been scheduled to carry out on the pageant on Sunday.
The search ended on Thursday morning, when the Northamptonshire Police stated they’d discovered a person’s physique, which they didn’t publicly determine.
The police stated that the person’s household had been knowledgeable and that there didn’t seem like suspicious circumstances surrounding the loss of life.
In a press release shared with The New York Occasions by a detailed buddy of Mr. Odubanjo’s, Tice Cin, his household remembered him warmly and stated his disappearance had been “fully out of character.”
“He’s a heat and infectious character, a contagious smile, and a coronary heart stuffed with kindness,” the household’s assertion stated. “When his sister’s twins have been born, he took it upon himself to maneuver in and help his sister and husband with their younger household.”
Echoing criticism on social media of the seek for Mr. Odubanjo, the household’s assertion additionally stated, “We consider that if he had acquired sufficient care, he would nonetheless be alive.”
In a press release, the Northamptonshire Police stated that “Looking open terrain and water requires specialist abilities to find a lacking individual and to safe and protect proof. Unofficial searches carry a danger to each these looking out, and to the investigation.”
The disappearance and loss of life stay an lively investigation, the police stated. The organizers of the Shambala Competition, which describes itself as “anti-corporate, impartial and environmentally pioneering,” stated they have been “devastated by this example” however in any other case declined to remark whereas awaiting the coroner’s report on the reason for loss of life.
Mr. Odubanjo, who was born and raised in London, was thought-about a rising star within the metropolis’s poetry scene. He was the creator of “Whereas I But Stay” and the prizewinning assortment “Aunty Uncle Poems,” and served because the editor of bathtub magg, a web-based poetry journal. He labored as an editor at Dangerous Betty Press and was finding out for a Ph.D. in inventive writing on the College of Hertfordshire.
His disappearance prompted an outpouring of help from Britain’s poetry group.
“Our mild change in a darkish room,” Kareem Parkins-Brown, a London-based poet, stated of Mr. Odubanjo. “He was the voice for the fun of London life. Our metropolis’s Frank O’Hara.”
“Within the literary world I’ve usually felt misunderstood and keen to elucidate myself, however I at all times felt you bought me,” the poet Raymond Antrobus stated in a message. “So many people who knew your brilliance and have been ready for the remainder of the world to catch up.”
“He simply had this air of knowledge about him,” Ms. Cin, Mr. Odubanjo’s buddy, stated. “He may go wherever on the earth and folks would look to him for recommendation.”
Mr. Odubanjo had been scheduled to look on the Barbican Centre in London this month as a part of 05fest, a pageant placed on by the poet Inua Ellams.
However Mr. Odubanjo had huge ambitions outdoors of his native Britain. “He needed to inform tales throughout the entire world,” Ms. Cin stated, however he at all times felt a robust connection together with his house metropolis.
As Mr. Odubanjo stated in one in every of his poems: “london is a little bit of me / london is the place for me.”
