Marjorie Maddox*

Marjorie Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, in Pennsylvania. To enumerate just some of her achievements, count the 17 collections of poetry she has published — awards received including the Yellowglen Prize, an Illumination Book Awards Medal, the Foley Poetry Prize, and several chapbook awards — as well as the more than 700 poems, stories, and essays she’s published in journals and anthologies.

Her new book Seeing Things (2025, Wildhouse Publishing) will appear on February 28th. Amid the advance praise for this poetry collection, Jeanne Murray Walker has said, “It’s surely one of the best books I have read this year.” It is a very personal book where Marjorie Maddox finds herself between her mother’s advancing dementia and her daughter’s depression, with troubling memories of her own.

The following poem is a tribute from one friend to another, both of whom are fine poets, one of whom died far too young of inflammatory breast cancer. I have had the privilege of editing poetry collections for both Marjorie Maddox (True, False, None of the Above) and Anya Krugovoy Silver (Second Bloom) as part of the Poiema Poetry Series. This poem first appeared in Presence, and is from Marjorie’s new book Seeing Things.

Photo with Bald Heads

— for Anya Krugovoy Silver and Noah Silver

Or nearly; the baby fuzz is hers,
compliments of the cancer we seldom speak,
though she does—loudly and often—but not now.
Instead, on this matte finish, she calmly cradles
the red-faced infant, his small mouth open,
life from the still-living pulsing.
His soft spot already
sprouts strands she’ll touch
and touch again. See
how she stares out at us
or at God, just this side of the pictureperfect
smile she owns
in the bright flash
of her dark room. See how
she embraces, with her
sleep-deprived, wideawake
eyes, much more
than the omniscient
one-eyed camera
could ever claim. Only she
can reveal her See
this is me there, here, now,
grabbing my own ever after,
the camera clicks and subtle shifts
that follow: her liturgy not of beginnings
or ends, but persistence, holy continuation
into our space of now, brimming
just so with this immortal moment of joy.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Marjorie Maddox: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825―1911) is a poet, journalist, public speaker, and story writer. She was born in Baltimore to free Black parents. She became involved in the abolitionist cause, assisting slaves in their journeys on the Underground Railroad. She was also an activist in the women’s suffrage and temperance movements.

She is the author of many poetry collections, including Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854), and The Sparrow’s Fall and Other Poems (1894). Her story “The Two Offers” was the first short story published by an African American. She also published several novels and essay collections.

The motivation for her activism was her faith in Christ. She took on the powerful, white status quo that justified slavery through the twisting of scripture. While speaking at rallies, her language was heavily flavoured by references to the Bible, particularly to the direct teaching and actions of Jesus.

The following poem is from her 1846 book Forest Leaves (also known as Autumn Leaves).

That Blessed Hope

Oh touch it not that hope so blest
------Which cheers the fainting heart,
------And points it to the coming rest
------Where sorrow has no part.

Tear from heart each worldly prop,
------Unbind each earthly string;
------But to this blest and glorious hope,
------Oh let my spirit cling.

It cheer’d amid the days of old
------Each holy patriarch’s breast,
------It was an anchor to their souls,
------Upon it let me rest.

When wand’ring in the dens and caves,
------In goat and sheep skins drest,
------Apeel’d and scatter’d people learn’d
------To know this hope was blest.

Help me to love this blessed hope;
------My heart’s a fragile thing;
------Will you not nerve and bear it up
------Around this hope to cling.

Help amid this world of strife
------To long for Christ to reign,
------That when he brings the crown of life
------I may that crown obtain.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Teresa of Ávila*

Teresa of Ávila (1515—1582) is a Spanish nun who was a central figure in the Catholic Church’s counter-reformation. Her autobiography and other writings, express and justify her experience of mystic faith.

From childhood she and her brother were fascinated with ideas of martyrdom — running away from home when she was seven with the intent of fighting the Moors and becoming martyrs themselves. Once she reached adulthood, against her father’s wishes she entered a Carmelite convent. Early on, she was drawn to austere religious practices, became severely ill for three years, and was close to death.

In 1558 she embarked on a program to return the Carmelite order to its austere roots. Once she had established 16 additional convents, conflict arose between factions within the Carmelite order. She was ordered to found no further convents and to retire to the convent in Seville. By 1577 John of the Cross — who in 1568 had established a monastery of Carmelite reform for men — was imprisoned in Toledo. This struggle was resolve in 1579 through the establishment of an independent order of Discalced Carmelites.

Loving Colloquy

If all the love you have for me,
my God, is like my love for you,
say, what detains me, that I do?
Or what is it delaying thee?
— Soul, what of me are your desires?
— My God, no more than you to see.
— And what most in you fear inspires?
— What I fear most is losing thee,
A soul within its God now hidden,
whatever else should it desire,
but to e’er greater love aspire,
and in that love remain all hidden,
returned anew into love’s fire?
One love that owns me I request,
my God, my soul within you centered,
for making me the sweetest nest
where union can the best be entered.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Teresa of Ávila: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871—1938) is a poet and civil rights activist who was born in Florida to black parents who had never been slaves. His father was a headwaiter at a Jacksonville resort, and a preacher. James attended Atlanta University, since such opportunities were not available for Blacks in Florida.

His expansive career included become a teacher and school principal, a practicing lawyer, and a writer for musical theatre in partnership with his brother Rosamond. He served as a U.S. consul in Venezuela, and later in Nicaragua, and then became an editorial writer for the New York Age. In 1917 he published his first poetry collection, Fifty Years and Other Poems, James Johnson worked for many years as an advocate for Black rights with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, until 1930 when he became a part-time teacher at Fisk University.

Although agnostic he was greatly influenced by the spiritual heritage of the Black church. His influential compilations, The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and it’s follow up, drew attention to this important musical tradition. This work also influenced his most celebrated poetry collection God’s Trombones (1927, Viking) in which he found a dignified form for presenting Black religious experience and practice.

The following poem is from God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The book was illustrated by Aaron Douglas.
“© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.”

Listen Lord

A Prayer

O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before thy throne of grace.
O Lord — this morning —
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning —
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord — open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.

Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners —
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lord — ride by this morning —
Mount your milk-white horse,
And ride-a this morning —
And in your ride, ride by old hell,
Ride by the dingy gates of hell,
And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.

And now, O Lord, this man of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning —
Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,
And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take him, Lord — this morning —
Wash him with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth —
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning —
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.

And now, O Lord —
When I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow —
When I've been called everything but a child of God —
When I'm done travelling up the rough side of the mountain —
O — Mary's Baby —

When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death —
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet —
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin' up morning — Amen.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.