The poet, publisher and philanthropist Felix Dennis has died of cancer at the age of 67. In 1971 he was a defendant in the notorious Oz trial, and jailed, as a co-editor of the underground magazine, for conspiracy to corrupt public morals. He recorded a single with John Lennon to raise money for a legal defence fund, and following his acquittal on appeal, went on to found his own magazine publishing company in 1973. Its titles today include The Week, Auto Express, Maxim, Viz, and Computer Shopper.

In 1999, he was treated for a serious thyroid condition, and took advantage of a stay in hospital to write his first poem, on a post-it note. "I needed something utterly absorbing and gripping, when I wasn't doing business," he said, "and I certainly found it. When you're writing, you're in a totally different zone... I can start a difficult poem and look up at the clock and see to my astonishment that three hours have passed. Instead of taking crack cocaine, going out with whores and boozing, I'll sit down alone in a room and have just as much fun, if not more." He wrote more than 1,500 poems, including one about his charity, The Heart of England Forest, which aims to create a large forest of British broadleaf trees in Warwickshire. "Whosoever plants a tree / Winks at immortality," he wrote.

In recent years he published several collections of poetry, and embarked on a number of poetry reading tours, characteristically titled 'Did I Mention The Free Wine?' .  He claimed to spend three or four hours a day writing poetry, dividing his time between homes in Warwickshire, London, New York, Connecticut and the Caribbean island of Mustique. Forward Prize organiser Susannah Herbert said the news was “awfully sad”, and praised his backing for poetry: “He was a patron of poetry on the grand scale.” The Forward’s £5,000 best first collection prize bears his name.