Terrible news.

Nemo

I'm so sorry to hear this.

Marcia

A reminder about collecting her poems for a book (which I think is an excellent idea, by the way): internet sites vanish constantly, and some of her web-printed poems will go along with them eventually. I had to use at least one Google cache on that account in my post above. Hopefully, she kept printouts of published work, or stored them on her hard drive, and these will survive to be reprinted if heirs and editors approve.

On the other hand, as drafts have been mentioned, we know she posted some on Eratosphere and undoubtedly elsewhere. I don’t know whether all of them wound up as published, but I recall them as being quite polished. I realize those have long since been pruned from the Sphere, but I remember a thread here from a few years ago, maybe on General Talk, where someone linked to a website that provided a way of going back in time to retrieve “ancient” threads (ones that had already disappeared even in cached form) on Eratosphere and perhaps other workshopping sites. I couldn’t locate that thread, but it the tool still exists, it’d be very helpful.

The Internet Archive, informally known as the Wayback Machine, stores the contents of assorted pages as they appeared on stated dates. It doesn't have everything, but Mark is right that we might find something.

If Paul is correct that Maz lost poems when a drive became unreadable, there will be a lot of searching to be done--assuming that we receive permission to do it, and that the task isn't being taken in hand by someone who was close to Maz and knew her wishes. Still waiting to hear.

I am so sorry to hear this. Maz was one of the first poets to welcome me to Eratosphere and always maintained a kindness and understanding towards all.

As for collecting her work - has anyone found out if perhaps she has a family member or friend whom she's entrusted with such a task? It seems almost presumptous to begin a project of that magnitude and importance without making sure she hadn't already made prior arrangements or vocalized her own wishes.

Exactly.

She could be tough, in her upright English way, and she wasn't afraid to ruffle feathers. But she once mentioned casually that when bees get exhausted, you can revive them with a spoonful of sugar water. I was like, who the hell spoonfeeds bees???

And the fact is, if she ruffled your feathers, you probably needed it. She disliked pomp and pretension and anything that smacked of hypocrisy. That's what made her such a good satirist.

Maz was a guest at Poets.org last year, http://www.poets.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16688

Dear old Maz! Back in the day, I helped her edit an edition of an online magazine. I wondered why I hadn't seen her round and about since my return to online po-boards. What a dreadful shame.

Yes, it would be that. Nothing is being done yet; everything depends on hearing from people who might know what she herself wished.

It's awful, too awful.
Besides being a vivid and delightful presence on the web - one of those people who makes it human - Maz was a far, far better poet than almost all those who get into print in the UK. She was the real thing, in every sense.
This hurts badly.

A collection of her work would be a real treasure. I do hope it can be done.