Odds and Ends Essays, Blogs, Internet Discussions, Interviews and Miscellany

accepted. Later she sent me some poems that she’d written on her own and which I also accepted. It was at this point
that we began to communicate with each other online-regrettably never meeting in person.
During the time I knew her, I was struck by her honesty and willingness to tell me about herself and the past
struggles she’d had in life that had affected her deeply. A major part of her life during the time I knew her was the
fibromyalgia she was constantly plagued by, and which drained her of nearly all of her physical and emotional
energy. As a consequence, she was taking quite a lot of medication to control both the physical and emotional pain
that this condition was causing her. Despite all this, and rising above it, she remained integral to poetry publishing,
being for many years the Poetry Editor for Unlikely Stories, and much admired by those she worked with and those
she published.
I can’t recall if it was Michelle or Vernon who asked me if I would publish Dark Hope as an ebook, but I did so in 2011.
What struck me about the poems in it, is that despite their having been written by two people, you would never have
guessed it-such is the symbiotic nature of the poems’ registers. It was this ability of the “authorial voices” to
become submerged, melded and intertwined (whether by accident or design) that appealed to me.
I know Michelle (and Vernon) would be pleased to have Dark Hope now published in a printed version, for although
she appreciated the audience reach of ebooks, she dearly loved the printed word, and the physicality of a book in
ones hands, and the aroma of its pages and the memories its presence can evoke.
I would like to finish by mentioning the recent sad death of Vernon’s wife, Elaine, in November 2015. He wrote on
Facebook, ‘Her suffering is over, but I will miss the most special person who ever entered my life. She gave me
almost 27 magnificent years. In my pain, the joy of knowing how much she loved me will give me consolation’.
May she and Michelle both rest in peace.
169