Yaedi E. Ignatow, 60

Yaedi E. Ignatow, a poet, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker, died in Tucson on Oct. 9. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer four years ago. 

Although primarily a poet and playwright, Ms. Ignatow also worked on the East End between 1995 and 2003 for the Hamptons International Film Festival, Harold Shepherd Real Estate, Allan M. Schneider and Associates, and as an administrative assistant to Budd Schulberg, the Academy Award-wining screenwriter of “On the Waterfront.”

Yaedi (rhymes with lady) Elizabeth Ignatow was born in Queens on Nov. 1, 1956, the daughter of David Ignatow, a poet celebrated internationally and particularly well known on the South Fork, and Rose Graubart Ignatow, a painter, poet, and writer. Her parents died before her, as did her half brother, David.

Although she spent her infancy and very young years in Queens and Kansas, by the time she was 4 or 5, Ms. Ignatow was living with her parents in Springs, where she attended the Springs School before heading to East Hampton High School and graduating from the Hampton Day School in Bridgehampton.

Ms. Ignatow earned a B.A. in literature and creative writing at Southampton College, graduating with the class of 1979, after which she earned an M.F.A. in writing and the study of contemporary poetry at Vermont College of Norwich University, near Montpelier, Vt., in 1985.

Sheep Meadow Press published a book of her poetry, “The Flaw,” in 1984. And, in 1986, the late Robert Long compiled and edited “Long Island Poets,” a collection that featured her work as well as that of her father.

Ms. Ignatow was married to Chris Conforti, whom she had met in 1984 at Reed’s Photo Shop in East Hampton. They divorced in 2008 but stayed close friends and creative partners, according to Mr. Conforti. For the past eight years she had been living with Patrick Teske in Tucson. She had just finished her first short film, “The Aria,” several months before she died.

In addition to Mr. Conforti and Mr. Teske, three cousins, living in New York City and Washington, D.C., survive.

There will be a celebration of her life on Sunday in Tucson. At her request, her ashes will be dispersed at East Hampton beaches in the future.