George Plimpton, founder and Editor in Chief of the Paris Review, has died. The exuberant Plympton, who passed away at the age of 76, had lived more than his share of adventures in the pursuit of his own brand of ‘participatory journalism’. Sometime boxer, trapeze artist and actor (he appeared in Good Will Hunting and an episode of the Simpsons), he was regrettably never able to realise one of his final dreams: to take a posse of poets into space:

“The one participatory piece I still want to write is about outer space, of course. I want to go up before I pass away. I want a poet to go up too – WS Merwin, perhaps. John Ashberry. Updike. Maybe me. They need a good chronicler to write about what it really feels like to be up there. I live in hope.”

As do we. Poets in space? Send us up.