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.