Remembering Poet Martha Silano, Spring Continues On Springing, Cats and Hummingbirds and Rebecca Solnit

Remembering Poet Martha Silano

On May 5, we lost my good friend and wonderful poet Martha (Marty) Silano to ALS. The photo to the left is the last time I saw her in person, on a sunny summer afternoon with wildfire haze. This is the way I’ll always remember her, wandering with the sun at her back in a field of flowers.

I met Marty when we both published books with Steel Toe Books, her Blue Positive and my own Becoming the Villainess in 2006. I remember us doing a reading together at the old Hugo House (housed in a retired funeral home—amazing and full of ghosts!) and thinking she was so cool. I did not know we were going to start a nearly-20 year friendship where we’d celebrate together—book launches, literary festivals, AWPs, birthdays, housewarmings, babies, and more.

Marty was diagnosed with ALS about eighteen months ago, and because she had the most severe kind, she tried to do as much as she could as long as she could—hiking and writing poems with a vengeance. She was still doing online readings while she was losing her ability to speak. I think she ended up with three books by the end of eighteen months (all of which are suberb, and probably her best work).

One of her publishers said she was still texting about marketing the week she died. I call that an incredible act of will. I will say I am so happy she took the time to come out to Woodinville to see me in the last few years, when we were still being cautious about seeing people. Spend time with your friends when you can, and celebrate them while they are still around. I have lost two friends in the space on a year, both of them “healthier” than I am, not friends I would have said I could possibly lose. It makes you realize how precious this “small” stuff is. Let light shine its way on your journey, Martha. Read her poems at the Poetry Foundation here.

Spring Goes on Springing, with Cats and Hummingbird, and Rebecca Solnit

I spent several days grieving, I have to admit, and the cats and my husband tried their best to cheer me up. As always seems to happen, the Seattle area brightened and shone with blooms in the days after Martha’s death, and I know she loved the outdoors, so I tried to appreciate the beauty around us.

I also wrote a poem about her, which I don’t know was any good, but if you can’t write an elegy for your friends, then what can you do when you’re a poet?

Here is Charlotte, a hummingbird, frilled iris, and blooming wisteria.

Seeing Rebecca Solnit tonight!

If you are a Rebecca Solnit fan (my brother introduced me to her work during the pandemic, recommending Paradise Built in Hell), she is appearing tonight in Seattle to talk about how to deal with uncertainty and despair during difficult times—feminism, democracy, climate change and power. Rebecca’s work is very accessible and hopeful, while also practical and solutions-oriented. This is my first time hearing her speak, and I’m looking forward to it. A good week to address how to deal with the stress of change and the unknown.

In the meantime, go read some of Martha’s work and maybe order one of her books—you won’t regret it.