[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Maz encouraged me at a difficult time with a difficult poem, and it meant so much to me. I know she did that for others, as well. I am saddened to hear this news. She will be missed.

[Shaun J. Russell]

I'm saddened most by the fact that she stopped posting here in the same month that I joined...so I missed out on her presence.

Nice to see so many people here revisiting her work. It's a poet's only real hope of immortality, after all.

'Megaera in the Cocktail Hour'

http://www.poetryworm.com/Worm%2017.htm

Megaera in the Cocktail Hour

She is standing with the dark-eyed man
in the corner. He is twitchy with his glass
casting glances at the wall where the clock
escaped. It is because, his teeth remarked,
he has to be elsewhere, locking the gate
against defenders. She has been through
several sieges, has eaten ripe, unnamed flesh
and sucked on roast rat-tails.
She reaches down with tended talons,
tweaks the rule of stockings
which she wears on her shinbones
as a statement of entente.

Icebergs clink in crystal,
liners cruise proud and unprepared
across the carpet. Passengers wave
from the shore, their journey in the air.
She is growing feathers as he squirms.
She preens, pecks, crows 'Darling.'
He is nestward bound, destined
to feed her green and gold fledglings. The rush
of wings bears him out into the carpark
and pins him to leather. He has no chance
to semaphore. He misses Mayday.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M.A. Griffiths was born and grew up in London, but now lives in Dorset (Hardy's Wessex).
She enjoys writing both free and formal verse, and participating in online poetry boards.
Her work has appeared in Snakeskin, Crescent Moon Journal, The Eleventh Muse,
Mind Mutations, and Mindfire Renewed, amongst others.

[Jones Pat]

I am saddened to hear this news....I'll just pass on the post I made on the GAZ where I knew Maz best...

I wept when I read the news about Maz on Erato.

I knew Maz from several boards, but mostly this one, from way back years ago. She was an exceptional poet, had tremendous wit and she encouraged so many new/young/old poets like me to keep working at this game, to keep trying, to keep writing. Her critiques were always spot on and even when the poems we posted were god awful and she was quick to say so, she always had helpful suggestions and a word of encouragement at the end. : )

She encouraged me and many others to consider reading, trying to write formal poetry, to go to Eratosphere, read the poems posted there. I did go there as she suggested and still begin my day there every day. Not to post, but to read.

After the first few issues of SCR and The Chimaera came out with my art in them, was the last time I heard from Maz. She wrote "See, I knew those formalists would get to you one way or another". : )

Her voice has been, will continue to be missed by many. All who knew her, her poems and critiques are richer for the experience.

The thread about her death on Erato has many of her poem posted now:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...?t=8669&page=3

Pat