I never knew my paternal grandmother. She died at age 32 when my dad was five. A few years ago he started going through and collecting her poetry. She had always wanted to become a published author, but only got one small work out before the leukemia set in. For my dad, reading her poetry has been a way to get to meet the mother he never had a chance to get to know.
Over the past few months I’ve helped him set up a website so that people can read about her. Though I’m sure internet publishing isn’t what she had in mind when she wrote the poems, it has at least let me get to know her. Much of the work is dark, referring to a failed romance, fear of getting involved with my grandfather, and sadness over knowing she was going to die and leave two small children.
The site is up at www.marieely.com. There’s also a collection of black and white photographs and low-res scans of the Sacred Paintings she wrote about, her only published work.