The stairs there 
  are steep, dizzying, 
    aglow with everything 
      you’re afraid to know. 
	 Descend gingerly—but 
	   quick enough to outstep fear. 
	 Down deep in the inner 
      surrounded by flames, 
    the Oz of the subconscious 
  mouths your name, gifts 
courage, heart, brain. 

*Inner Sanctum (mixed-media color collage) from the series
Of Stone and Light, copyrighted © by Paola Jo Corso.
All rights reserved. Appears here with artist’s permission.

Paola Jo (PJ) Corso

is an American fiction writer, poet, photographer, and literary activist. She is the author of seven poetry and fiction books, and her work has appeared in Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Progressive, USA Today, U.S. Catholic, Western Pennsylvania History Magazine, Women’s Review of Books, Writer’s Digest, and numerous anthologies.

She is co-editor with Dr. Nandita Ghosh of Politics of Water: A Confluence of Women’s Voices, a special issue of the International Journal of Politics published by Routledge.

A literary activist whose community service was recognized by the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Corso is co-founder and resident artist of Steppin Stanzas a grant-awarded poetry and art project celebrating city steps, and The Ferlinghetti Girls, Sicilian-American sister-poet activists celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s legacy and vision of free speech and poetry for the people.

As a member of the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Collective, Corso exhibits her photographs in libraries, galleries, and open studios. For a more comprehensive bio and a gallery of her visual art, please see her website:

https://www.paolajocorso.com/bio

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Poetry Moment: ‘A Cigarette Butt on a Landing’ by Paola Corso, by Marjorie Maddox for WPSU Public Media for Central Pennsylvania, audio plus transcript (2 September 2024)

Marjorie Maddox

Host of Poetry Moment for WPSU-FM, Assistant Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and Professor Emerita of English at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has 17 collections of poetry published, including:

• Hover Here (Broadstone, January 2026)
  
  
• Seeing Things (Wildhouse Publishing, 2025)
  
  
• two ekphrastic collaborations with photographer Karen Elias published by Shanti Arts, Small Earthly Space (2025) and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (2022)
  
  
• In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (Shanti Arts, May 2023), Royal Dragonfly Book Award 2023, First Place in Fine Arts/Photography, with Marjorie’s daughter, surrealist painter Anna Lee Hafer, as well as Karen Elias, Greg Mort, and others
  
  
• Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press, March 2022), winner of International Book Awards 2022 and Illumination Book Awards 2023
  
  
• Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Wipf and Stock, 2018), winner of the Yellowglen Prize
  
  

In addition, Maddox is the author of 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); and a resource text for high school students and teachers, Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Kelsay Books, 2020).

She also has five 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, Maddox co-edited the anthology Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press: Keystone Books, 2005).

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

⚡ To Dream of Curlews and Stars: A review of Marjorie Maddox’s Small Earthly Space by Jason Irwin in Rust Belt Girl Guest Spots (1 August 2025)