~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2026 ~
Tag: Marjorie Maddox
Winter 2026 by Marjorie Maddox
Winter 2026
The snow. All morning
I’ve been shoveling it:
stab, scoop, lift, hurl,
almost the same motion
as digging a plot deep
and wide enough
for a country,
but not quite,
almost strenuous enough,
breath-stuck-in-the-frigid-air-
enough for the ultimate
attack on 350 million hearts
and their owners trying
to stab, scoop, lift, hurl
some kind of sense into
the brittle air. Now
the side of the driveway
has white walls two feet high,
but the path to the house—
a word no longer characterized
anywhere as safe—
remains a sheet of ice,
the less dangerous kind,
but still lethal. Nothing
here is anything
like okay. Stab, scoop,
lift, hurl. Get out
but don’t turn your back,
don’t put the car
in reverse. It is almost
the same motion. Who’s to say
how a movement
is interpreted
in the cold?
*
WPSU-FM Poetry Moment host, Presence assistant editor, and Professor Emerita at Commonwealth U, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—most recently Hover Here—a story collection, 5 children’s books, and two anthologies. Her middle-grade biography is A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment. marjoriemaddox.com
ONE ART x Keystone Poetry: Featured Reading — Sun. 11/2 at 2pm Eastern
ONE ART x Keystone Poetry
Date: Sunday, November 2
Time: 2:00pm Eastern
Please Note: This is a virtual event held via Zoom.
>>> Tickets Available <<<
About The Reading
During this virtual event (held via Zoom), Featured Readers will share their poem selected for publication in Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press). Time permitting, we hope to take a few questions after readers share their poems.
Hosts:
Marjorie Maddox & Jerry Wemple, Co-Editors, Keystone Poetry
Mark Danowsky, Founder/Editor-in-Chief, ONE ART
Featured Readers:
Joseph Chelius is the author of three full-length poetry collections. His most recent collection, Playing Fields, was published earlier this year by Kelsay Books.
Grant Clauser is a Pennsylvanian. His sixth book, Temporary Shelters, was just published by Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, Kenyon Review and other journals. He’s an editor for a large media company and teaches poetry workshops.
Geraldine Connolly grew up in Westmoreland County and has published five poetry collections. She’s received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Maryland Arts Council and Breadloaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review and Poetry Ireland Review. Her new book is Instructions at Sunset, from Terrapin Books in September 2025. She lives in Alameda, California.
Brian Fanelli is the author of the poetry collections Waiting for the Dead to Speak (NYQ Books) and All That Remains (Unbound Content). His writing has been published in the LA Times, World Literature Today, Midnight Oil, Pedestal, Paterson Literary Review, and elsewhere. Brian also writes frequently about horror movies and is a contributing writer to HorrorBuzz.com and 1428Elm.com. He has his M.F.A. from Wilkes University and his Ph.D. from SUNY Binghamton University. Currently, he’s an Associate Professor of English at Lackawanna College.
Jan Freeman is the author of three books of poetry and the founder and former director of Paris Press (1995–2018), which is now an imprint of Wesleyan University Press. She is the recipient of two MacDowell Fellowships, the Spiral Shell Fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts/Moulin a Nef, and an Associateship at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. More at www.janfreeman.net
Robbie Gamble (he/him) is the author of the chapbook A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in ONE ART, Pangyrus, Post Road, Salamander, and The Sun. He is the poetry editor at Solstice Literary Magazine, and he divides his time between Boston and Vermont.
Lynn Levin is a poet and writer. Called one of the most “poignantly witty voices of our time” (Bucks County Community College), she is the author of nine books, most recently the short story collection House Parties (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), named one of the best books of summer by Philadelphia Magazine. “Sleepless Johnston,” her ballad that appears in Keystone Poetry, is from her poetry collection The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020). Lynn Levin teaches at Drexel University and for many years taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania. Her website is: lynnlevinpoet.com.
Professor of English at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); and the Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with photographer Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, a collaboration with her artist daughter, Anna Lee Hafer (www.hafer.work) and others. How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay) and Seeing Things (Wildhouse) will be available in 2024. In addition, she has published the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books. With Jerry Wemple, she is co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press) and is assistant editor of Presence. She hosts Poetry Moment at WPSU. See marjoriemaddox.com
Amy Small-McKinney is a Montgomery County PA Poet Laureate Emeritus. She is the author of six poetry books, including three full-length books and three chapbooks. & You Think It Ends (Glass Lyre Press), her newest full-length book, was released in March 2025. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, Pedestal Magazine, Tahoma Review and Verse Daily, among others. She has contributed to many anthologies, for example, Rumors, Secrets, & Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion, & Choice (Anhinga Press, 2022) and 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium (Ashland Poetry Press). Her poems have also been translated into Korean and Romanian.
Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection is Abundance/Diminishment. Her book The Red Queen Hypothesis won the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Prize; she’s the author of Water-Rites (2012) and six chapbooks. She is a hospice volunteer, writing tutor, and chronicler of her own backyard who maintains a long-running blog at https://annemichael.blog/
Jerry Wemple has published four poetry collections. His most recent is We Always Wondered What Became of You from Broadstone Books. The collection of mostly prose poems centers on his secret transracial adoption within his biological family, growing up as a biracial child in rural Pennsylvania during an era when people of color were almost nonexistent there, and discovering the identity of his birth father as an adult. He is co-editor of the anthology Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, and the follow-up Keystone Poetry. He also co-edited the anthology Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys: Essays on Rural Pennsylvania. His poetry and creative nonfiction work appear in numerous journals and anthologies, and have been published internationally in Ireland, Chile, and Sweden. He teaches in the Creative Writing program at Commonwealth University in Pennsylvania.
My Mother Gets a Can Opener and Roses for Her Birthday by Marjorie Maddox
My Mother Gets a Can Opener and Roses for Her Birthday
The man she loves surprises her
by not giving what she needs
around her finger. On her birthday, the metal ring
from the green bean can
clangs on the counter. She laughs
nervously, runs her finger
along the long stems of new roses
arranged traditionally in the vase
my dead father gave her,
though she would never take his flowers, expensively bought.
And this love, spontaneous in its practicality,
practical in its spontaneity, she wears proudly
everywhere, polished, shiny
as the kitchen her cans still whir in
while the two cook, hungrily, together.
*
Professor of English at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); and the Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with photographer Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, a collaboration with her artist daughter, Anna Lee Hafer (www.hafer.work) and others. How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay) and Seeing Things (Wildhouse) will be available in 2024. In addition, she has published the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books. With Jerry Wemple, she is co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press) and is assistant editor of Presence. She hosts Poetry Moment at WPSU. See marjoriemaddox.com
Karaoke at the Artists’ Residency by Marjorie Maddox
Karaoke at the Artists’ Residency
Ok, not exactly like a story you dreamed then started forgetting
as soon as you stretched your mouth in a yawn and each word
tumbled into the stark bright of day’s dementia, but, never-
theless, somehow any sweet and clear half-note you ever
claimed in morning’s showers—yes, any—now trip
on the hot mist of memory, crack all ribs, and end up
far off-key and stranded in this place of friendly strangers
crooning their lungs out with mic and screen. Artists, photographers,
writers not in the outside world of tavern, but instead here in the donor-
funded upscale living room, where they (no shower background necessary)
throw back their heads and wail gloriously, not a glint or glimmer
of “Whose skin do I live in?” flashing in the chorus. And bravo,
kudos, and all prize nominations! What good is envy
when they belt out with such joy their favorite
“oldies” (separated from yours by twenty years) both so
unabashedly beautiful and exuberantly shattered with drunken
crescendos—each millennial apologizing for “advanced” age, while your real
tail-end-of-baby-boomer generation and wallflower membership politely goes
noticed but un-mentioned. And for this you are grateful: when you stumble
repeatedly—not from drink but from late-hour self-consciousness—
every one of them waves their arms, opens wide their throats
to bellow the lyrics boldly, graciously buoying your attempts
with camaraderie and the night’s call-and-response
of kindness—your own belated harmony
this off-kilter poem, all
you have to offer.
*
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (Paraclete, International Book Award and Illumination Book Award Winner); and the Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with photographer Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind. In addition, she has published the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist International Book Awards), A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry; I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book), and Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems. She is co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press) and is assistant editor of Presence. Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com
UFOs in May by Marjorie Maddox
UFOs in May
May in Maine and either snow, mist,
or dandelion wisps hover above the lake,
shadow-follow a breeze chilly enough to pretend
March, phantom ice crackling below or maybe just
a loon rising, rising. But this is May in Maine,
and it could be swarms of no-see-‘ems gathering
for group think, hanging about a phantom Lakeshore Bar
relocated thirty feet above ripples not going anywhere
in this mid-season pause between hike and hunker down.
And this is May in Maine and it could be winter or summer,
the suddenly present sun tricking you once again
to head out into her best pretend weather of Welcome
to Beauty, to air you can hear with your whole body,
shores that recede into rugged, a month of black flies
beginning to migrate to your neck and ankles,
but not there yet; weeks of whether to keep wearing
the long sleeves and flannel or lounge in bright rays
with nothing but a foolish tourist T-shirt and Deep Woods
spray to save you. And it is May in Maine and you are so
deliriously content that you wave both hello and goodbye
to the snow, mist, or dandelion wisps out all morning
migrating above the lake as you walk out now to the deck
to greet them, welcome them no matter what
or in what form they are. As do they for you.
*
English Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry (most recently Begin with a Question [paracletepress.com] and the ekphrastic collections Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For [shantiarts.co] and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind + the prose collection What She Was Saying [amazon.com]; children’s books; an anthology on PA. www.marjoriemaddox.com [marjoriemaddox.com]
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2023
Praise Poem for the Ordinary by Marjorie Maddox
Praise Poem for the Ordinary
For the pebble, the worm, the clothesline,
the warm bread, the simple turn of head
that says, “I hear you,” the burr that lets go
on its own, the bluebird that returns to perch
where the dogwood’s blossoms glow, the dim
light outside, the bright light within, the low
hum of hope when the unseen grows deep
in the hole you’ve dug in dry dirt
on an ordinary afternoon
just this side of Eden’s
repeated hallelujahs.
*
English Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry (most recently Begin with a Question and the ekphrastic collections Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind) + the prose collection What She Was Saying; children’s books; an anthology on PA. www.marjoriemaddox.com
Two Poems by Marjorie Maddox
Marvel Comics artists make Anthony Smith, 5, an honorary Avenger
-CNN, Updated February 26, 2013
Better than any honorary Ph.D,
this degree comes complete
with scrolled poster, anti-stigmatism kit,
and a real-time visit from Iron Man,
who, both Marvel-protected
and metal-enhanced,
bam-slams bullies far beyond
Daredevil’s “Know No Fear” blindness,
Xavier’s speedy wheelchair,
The Thing’s Mirror-averse face,
and even the Titanium Titan’s own heart’s
fragile disabilities.
O Anthony of the Blue Ear,
your strong heart opens ours
to hearing the human
we’ve tried redrawing
too many times in the dark
of our own image.
With your five-year-old glee,
we, too, might heed
Lee’s credo of responsibility.
as we don ordinary clothes for our
pale frame of graphic reality
splashed now with Living Color
by the otherworldly Flash
of your super, but-still-prone-
to-cavities, little-boy grin.
*
To a Penny from an Oncoming Train
Copper damsel in distress,
circle of the single cent,
abandoned and lonely,
who sacrificed you,
fastened you to the shine of my rails
with gum or spit?
You are a small
gleam in my dimmed headlights,
a swirl in my steam,
a spot to be swatted,
ironed out with my iron and steel.
Disguised as Lincoln,
you are no president
and cannot flee underground
until afterwards,
in a boy’s pocket, you lay flat,
hidden, a survivor,
amidst lint, and marbles,
and three kicking tree toads.
*
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question (Paraclete, International Book Award Winner) and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts), an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias—the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite); 4 children’s and YA books. In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, based on her daughter’s paintings (www.hafer.work) is forthcoming in 2023 (Shanti Arts). www.marjoriemaddox.com
Fly a Kite Day by Marjorie Maddox
Fly a Kite Day
-June 15, 2022
In the wind is the curl of her grandma’s gray, is the twirl
of her mother’s spin, is the sway of the willow’s green
while, no longer tethered, the girl swings into a sky
papered with kites. See how the bright diamonds—
both flimsy and strong—dip into dreams she shares
with them: women she knew only as passing breeze.
Still, she rises on their breath, hovers on their stories.
It is the same air. And she is not the hand or the string,
but, with them, a kaleidoscope of kites, high in the sky
and soaring.
*
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry— including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation, Begin with a Question (Paraclete 2022), and the ekphrastic collaboration with Karen Elias Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts 2022)—the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite), four children’s/YA books. In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, based on her daughter’s paintings, is forthcoming in 2023 (Shanti Arts). Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com.
The Gray Rabbit by Marjorie Maddox
The Gray Rabbit
has made a hammock of the ground:
stretched out, lazy, in the patch of brown
where nothing grows. He knows
the meaning of relax, shows
the world he can’t be bothered
with worry. When one bright cardinal
trills “birdie, birdie, birdie,”
the rabbit isn’t alarmed
at all. He stretches further,
his fur body flat against the earth.
The dull backyard flames full
of comfort and color.
*
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry— including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation, Begin with a Question (Paraclete 2022), and the ekphrastic collaboration with Karen Elias Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts 2022)—the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite), four children’s/YA books. In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, based on her daughter’s paintings, is forthcoming in 2023 (Shanti Arts). Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com
Two Poems by Marjorie Maddox
Nursery Rhyme
“Quiet,” says the word
that slips from sealed lips.
And “Wait,” warns the wound
still bruising at the hip.
“Not now,” think the arms
when tightened in his grip.
“Shh-shush,” mouths the wife
as she protects the crib.
“Run,” urge the others
when his words become whip.
“Don’t look,” cry the eyes;
he orders her to strip.
“Go now!” prompt the rhymes
that count the times she “trips.”
“Quiet,” says the word
that slips from sealed lips.
“Too late,” mouth the dead
that can’t protect the crib.
Aunt Sylvia Gives Fashion Advice
“Yes, dear, of course, even how to dress
is an art to be perfected. It’s simple
to get distracted, not keep the closet door open
to the possibilities that consecutive days
offer. To avoid unnecessary waste,
always dress in transition. First, a suit
for Sunday, royal blue or black that suits
the occasion, but never forget to dress
with you in mind, your likes and such. Don’t waste
time on colors you detest. Now add a simple
buttoned-up shirt (beige will do), then go to church. Monday,
substitute a dark vest over the open
neckline, plus a scarf full of flowers that open
up towards your face. This combination suits
any workday situation. Tuesday,
drape the scarf across that little black dress—
bring pearls for the evening, elegant and simple
for a late dinner. Why waste
precious time traveling home? Your waist
will look stunning, dear; just open
your dainty mouth and chew those simply
delicious morsels. (A tip: avoid dry-clean only suits,
silk shirts, and any dress
that won’t take spots). For Wednesday,
add a sports jacket. Keep it on for Thursday
with a blouse, skirt, that dazzling buckle at your waist,
which you can wear again next day with a dress
and later add a shiny vest to stay open
to a drink or two after work with the most eligible Suits.
Once you get the hang of it, it’s quite simple,
Sweetie, to be stylish and save money, so simple
to be smashing, which brings us to Saturday,
your big finale, but what will suit
the occasion? We could keep your waist
trim-looking with that vest, leggings, an open
collar for lunch at Louie’s, or we could dress
you up, Love, with a daring dress so simply
you, men will drop open their mouths all day.
Come, we’ve no time to waste. It’s Sunday; here’s a suit.”
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation—the short story collection What She Was Saying; 4 children’s/YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises & I’m Feeling Blue, Too!—Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press), and Presence (assistant editor). www.marjoriemaddox.com