[B.J. Preston]

A terrible loss.
Such an exceptional mind and poet: maturity and depth enmeshed with a high-blown sense of mischief and play (I loved the "Jerome" poems).

What saddens me deeply are the circumstances of her death, and what they seem to say about her life. To me and others here she clearly guarded her privacy, a choice that needs to be respected. OTOH, I suppose somehow I always assumed at least some of the online 'community' must know her more personally. I'm surprised how few posting here seem to know little more of her beyond her online persona. How regrettable it seems that a woman so many of us cherished for her literary gifts may not have known that while she lived.


David Anthony writes:

I think she had been in ill health for some time (it's in one or two of her poems, if you look hard).

I had that sense as well; here's a poem (posted for critique in 2005) Margaret indicated was about someone else, though I've always wondered if that was true.

Shopping as an Act of Faith

Light buoys her up. Dawn parts
the blinds and burns into her ribs.
She dresses slowly, binds
silk around her torso, listens
to the radio, aware of incoming waves
through her flesh and her wet organs,
deflected by her skeleton into a shimmer
on each high note. A soprano
sings; garden thrushes hunt for snails.
Somewhere in the sky, there is a room
without hardness, without vibration.

Outside the air is green. Deep draughts
of it are heavy, bread in her lungs. People
push too close. Fragile as a wishbone,
she keeps close to the railings. Her radio still plays,
open-throated at the window: Carmen's red flowers
trailing farewell down the street. The music
drops away from her ears, petal by petal. Clouds
shutter the sun. The light begins to leak away.

...........................(Maz)