In Memory of Mariah Sutherland

My name is Koon Woon and I was Mariah’s neighbor on the second floor. Mariah and I shared the love of writing and literature. At first when I moved into the Alaska House, Mariah first reached out to me and I went to the West Seattle Senior Center with her and I started feeling comfortable enough there to lead a poetry study and appreciation group. After Mariah and I were familiar with each other, we walked quite often from the apartment building to C & P Coffee and her favorite spot is the garden in the back.

Mariah was a lively conversationalist. She was up on many topics and she enjoyed reading the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly. She as I mentioned before was good with the written word and so she occasionally helped me proofreading and copyediting books from my Goldfish Press, which published all genres of literature but as it turns out, we publish more poetry books than anything else.

Mariah was very discerning about the political situation and the social climate of the country. She not only reads books, she reads them well and able to draw together the many threads that weave the culture and politics of this country.

Mariah also had an eye for art. I had helped her hang some of her perfectly cut and assembled collages at the Cupcake Royale, where we frequently met for coffee. My memories of Mariah is that she was stimulating, a careful thinker and had a magnetic personality. She was a wonderful friend.