Wisp of a wish 
that floats to nowhere 
in particular, but somewhere 
away from here. O seeds, 
refuse to stay grounded. 

Better to become cloud, 
to touch blue and blossom 
into night star, into gleam 
of constellation, reciting earth’s 

survival stories against the backdrop 
of dark. My mouth becomes breeze, 
and you rise into wonder. 

I follow. 
I always will follow. 

Three Wishes (2024, photograph)
Copyrighted © by Karen Elias. All rights reserved.
Appears here with artist’s permission.

*Publisher’s Note:

Creating visual art in response to poetry or other forms of writing is called etymphrasis, a term coined by artist, writer, and educator Jane Edberg. To learn more, see Kendall Johnson’s interview of Edberg and John Brantingham, whose book My Dead presents Brantingham’s poetry and Edberg’s artwork in response, in Issue 19 of MacQueen’s Quinterly: Art and Writing in This Age of Isolation... (August 2023).

Marjorie Maddox

is a recently retired Commonwealth University English Professor, an editor, and a poet and fiction writer whose work often explores history, the body, and spirituality. She has 20 books published in the genres of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including most recently a collaboration with artist Karen Elias, How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay Books, 2024); Begin with a Question: Poems (Paraclete Press, 2022), winner of the Illumination Book Award in 2023 and the International Book Award in 2022; and Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Kelsay Books, 2020), a resource for high school students and teachers.

Maddox has two ekphrastic poetry collaborations published by Shanti Arts: Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (2022), with photography by Karen Elias, and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts), with Marjorie’s daughter, surrealist painter Anna Lee Hafer, as well as Karen Elias, Greg Mort, and others.

Maddox also has four children’s books in print, and a story collection, What She Was Saying (Fomite Press, 2017). More than 700 of her poems, stories, and essays have been published in journals and anthologies. With Jerry Wemple, she co-edited the anthology Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press: Keystone Books, 2005). She serves as Assistant Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, hosts the weekly WPSU (Public Media for Central PA) Poetry Moment for the 2023-24 season, and gives readings and workshops across the country.

Her honors include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Bread Loaf Scholarship, the Cornell University Robert Chasen Memorial Poetry Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, several nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Seattle Review’s Bentley Prize, and numerous other accolades.

More details and additional resource links are available at the author’s website, Writing Across the Genres: http://www.marjoriemaddox.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Remembrance, a collaboration by Marjorie Maddox and Karen Elias in Valiant Scribe (Showcase 2024); features excerpts from their book Small Earthly Space (forthcoming from Shanti Arts), followed by a brief interview

⚡ Living Within the Art: A Poet and Photographer Discuss Their Collaboration Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts, 2022), by Maddox and Elias in The Ekphrastic Review (28 March 2022)

⚡ Memorial for George Floyd in Black and White, a collaboration by Maddox and Elias in About Place Journal (Volume 6, Issue 2: October 2020)

⚡ “Treacherous Driving” and Snow Heart, a poem by Maddox and a photograph by Elias in response, in The Ekphrastic Review (15 January 2019)

Karen Elias

After teaching college for 40 years, Dr. Karen Elias is an artist/activist, using photography to record the beauty and fragility of the world and to raise awareness about climate change. Her work is in private collections, has been exhibited in galleries, and has won numerous awards. She exhibits regularly at the Clinton County PA Arts Council and curates their annual juried photography exhibit.

In addition to Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts, 2022), her collaborations have appeared in many journals, including Valiant Scribe and About Place Journal. [See links above under “More on the Web...”] She is also a playwright whose plays have been anthologized by Climate Change Theatre Action and performed in eight countries.