Marjorie Maddox

Marjorie Maddox is Sage Graduate Fellow at Cornell University (MFA) and a professor of English at Lock Haven University, in Pennsylvania, where she is also director of their Creative Writing program. She has published five full-length poetry collections, five chapbooks, two children's books, and has co-edited (with Jerry Wemple) the anthology Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. Her short story collection What She Was Saying is forthcoming from Fomite Press.

Her most recent poetry books are Local News from Someplace Else (2013, Wipf & Stock), and True, False, None of the Above (2016, Cascade Books). I am pleased to say that I assisted with her new collection as editor, and have included it in the Poiema Poetry Series.

The following poem is from True, False, None of the Above.

Distinctions

-----------“There is one notable dead tree . . .
-----------the inscape markedly holding its
-----------most simple and beautiful oneness . . . .”
------------------------------------—Hopkins’ journals

Inscape

Curled into this moment,
swirled into this tree,
epiphany with a capitol E,
an ordained extraordinary gene
translated to mean uniquely
breathed into being and why
the world sings its key
of awe.

Instress

Such power to hold the whole
symphonic cosmos, spring pushing up
into twig and Trinity, each leaf
cradled by Creator, the Spirit
breathing its force field
of sentience, circling the sense
of our being that now—
this moment or the next—
breaks open its seed
of seeing.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.