Marjorie Maddox/Karen Elias
Elias and Maddox engaged in a mutually inspiring project, combining poetry and photography in creative collaboration. Their work has been exhibited at The Station Gallery (Lock Haven, PA). Additional collaborations have appeared in such literary, arts, or medical humanities journals as Cold Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Other Journal, and Ars Medica.
X Ray/Chiaroscuro
Like us, inside it’s dying,
twig bones brittle, curled veins
worming their way toward dirt.
Or, alive—its innards
still squirming toward light—
it thrives. Like this,
one raindrop of hope
keeps all our throats open,
the thirsty need for green
so black and white,
we feel what we cannot see
there in the dank cave
of the chest or here
in the chiaroscuro of forest
where, once exposed,
each fold of flesh or leaf
strives, with heart-
shaped odds,
to emerge.
About the collaborators:
Marjorie Maddox, winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize and Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); True, False, None of the Above (Illumination Book Award Medalist); Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award)—the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite); children’s books; Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (co-editor); Presence (assistant editor); and 600+ stories, essays, and poems in journals and anthologies. Her newest books Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press) and collaboration with photographer Karen Elias, Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts) are due out in 2021.
Dr. Karen Elias taught college English for 40 years and is now an artist/activist, using photography to record the fragility of the natural world and raise awareness about climate change. Her work is in private collections, has been exhibited in several galleries, and has won numerous awards. She is a board member of the Clinton County Arts Council where she serves as membership chair and curator of the annual juried photography exhibit. Elias and Maddox are engaged in an exciting, mutually inspiring project, combining poetry and photography in creative collaboration. Their work has been exhibited at The Station Gallery (Lock Haven, PA). Additional collaborations have appeared in such literary, arts, or medical humanities journals as About Place, Cold Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Other Journal, Glint, and Ars Medica.
Image: Chiaroscuro by Karen Elias. Fine art photograph. No completion date specified. By permission.
