Book Review: Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, poetry by Marjorie Maddox, photographs by Karen Elias
Poetry: Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, poetry by Marjorie Maddox, photographs by Karen Elias
The first night of the blizzard that stranger inched into Ohio.
Halfway through he skidded into our snow-spackled lives.
His heart is buried
In my father,
Who is buried.
(“Treacherous Driving” by Marjorie Maddox)
According to The Poetry Foundation website, “An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the ‘action’ of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.” The example they give on their website is Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” I might humbly suggest a more contemporary supplemental example.
Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For is one of the more extraordinary poetry collections I have ever experienced. Marjorie Maddox has collected poems that reflect upon her father’s heart transplant surgery. Sadly, the transplant did not restore his health. Themes of love and loss, the juxtaposition of a stranger’s death to the hope it gave the poet’s family, the ultimate triumph of death over life, wondering what part of that stranger’s “heart” was transplanted into her father. Other poems examine facets of our earth’s breaking heart: racial injustice, climate change, pandemic lockdowns.
These are not just poems, though. Karen Elias visually reflects on each poem with a photograph of a broken heart: cracked heart-shaped rocks, a heart-shaped vestige of a branch amputated from its tree, an illustration of a home with a heart superimposed on it. Some of the poems take inspiration from the photos, while other poems are illustrated by Elias’ beautiful and evocative imagery. The two art forms, poetry and photography, work in tandem to create a form of visual music, a sweet conversation that allows both parties to come to the fore, creating a blend more powerful than either would be alone.
This is not a book to read. This is a book to inhale, to infuse into your own heart and make it your own. You do not read this book. You experience it.
Book Review: Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, poetry by Marjorie Maddox, photographs by Karen Elias
Thank you for this lovely review! To learn more, please see http://www.marjoriemaddox.com