Anna Leahy

Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation

Arts & Literature

“This new full-length collection of poetry by Marjorie Maddox is extraordinary. Maddox makes poems that pull the world inside out: the hidden becomes apparent, the spiritual palpable, the heart, that sock stuffed in the chest, gives rise to ‘the architecture of mercy.’ Examining, in a variety of moods, both the dazzling intricacy and the frightening fragility of the human body, Maddox never forgets the heart at the heart of the matter.” —Kelly Cherry “In poems that survey the ‘body’s landscape,’ then raise their ‘hallelujah torrent’ to celebrate ‘the human beneath,’ Marjorie Maddox allows faith—in language that aspires toward prayer—to balance the sorrow and ‘stubbed joy’ that inform ‘the world we live in/and the world beyond.’ These poems acknowledge the body and its betrayals with clarity, humor, and Whitmanian fervor. This is a book of fierce and eloquent consolations.” —Michael Waters “Passionate, heartfelt documentaries of a life that is full, and filling, and reaching for true purpose.” —Scott Cairns “ ...Marjorie Maddox’s father, who, as she recounts in the reissued poetry collection Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation, receives a heart transplant from a dead stranger: “His heart is buried / in my father, / who is buried.” “ At the end of the poem “After the Transplant,” Maddox discloses what I’ve felt as well, even when it’s down to palliative care and hospice: “the dying die to soon.” We still want that distance between us and illness, between us and death.” “...Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation—are each worth reading on their own, for the distinctive story of illness, for the sharp perspective, and for the original voice. If you’ve seen one, you’ve not seen them all. Each is a really good book in its own right. Together, they are an imperative, a call for compassion for each other.”