Over the weekend, we were saddened to lose our dear friend Marie Cadden. Up until very recently, Marie was an integral member of our editing team, lending her poetry expertise, wisdom and great sense of humour to every editors’ meeting and issue launch – we were lucky to have her as long as we did.
There was a beautiful funeral yesterday for Marie in her home village of Spiddal, County Galway, where the church filled with her family and friends, with music, poetry and the spirit of this extraordinary woman.
Marie was not only co-editor of Skylight 47, she was also a great poet in her own right. Her first collection, Gynaecologist in the Jacuzzi, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2016. Her work was sensual, sassy, full of wisdom and humour.
While ill over the last few months Marie, in typical fashion, took on a project dear to her heart and to the benefit of others, bringing to fruition an important and inspiring project. Bosom Pals was published by Doire Press and edited by Marie. It was a very special poetry book: eight women, marvellous brave women, each with their own story and their own experience of breast cancer, wrote the poems in this anthology. The poems are funny, sad, and full of love, anger, loss and survival.
We and the Galway poetry community will miss Marie greatly. Our thoughts are with her family at this time.
SKYLIGHT 47 poetry 