Marjorie Maddox
Commonwealth University Professor, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? and Seeing Things (2024), as well as ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (w/Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (w/daughter Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work, 2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts) and others. Maddox also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone (co-editor with Jerry Wemple, PSU Press). Assistant editor of Presence, she hosts Poetry Moment. www.marjoriemaddox.com
Plan/et B
Of course, there are no
theatrical revivals, no Plan B
C, or D; no Great and Powerful Oz
behind the curtain pulling levers
that snap like dying twigs; no
omniscient director calculating
the weight of lost moss and air.
This is no audition. There are no
out-of-work actors on a broken stage;
no sound and fury signifying
What? Lost hope? Stupidity?
There are no encores, just
last decade’s smog masquerading
as fog If a tree explodes in the forest
and no one’s left to hear it. . . ?
There are no reimbursements.
You’ve paid the entrance fee.
There is no applause, no leaving.
Just the aftermath of here.
No you. No me.
The poem “Plan/et B” was inspired by the following: Staging the Anthropocene: Design by Karen Elias; graphics by Karen Elias and FreePik. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mzn3kd5a2q0ispnun0wbd/staging-the-anthropocene.jpg?rlkey=6mcvt10tcbfdonm3xcd7bl0a3&dl=0
