Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming Virginian poet and artist Terry Cox-Joseph. We are overjoyed to feature two of Terry’s poems, each paired with an image excerpted and detailed from her artworks. “Ode to the Leonids” takes us to a viewing of the Leonid meteor shower, an annual event that draws crowds to observe meteors from the Tempel-Tuttle comet burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. “Comrades in this odd winter night, we crane our necks./ Breath condensed, eyes greedy, we search/ for enchanted cascades.” Terry draws us forward by means of enjambment, painting the excitement of the occasion in rich textural imagery. “Internal Physics” has a strong visual element and uses the metaphor of solar nuclear fusion to explore human intimacy. “Supported by palladium, embellished/ with deuterium, lightened in helium./ Our dance/ is the core of the sun.” Terry handles the metaphor deftly and with a sense of wonder and joy that is sensual but never salacious. Bold internal spacing creates a sense of breathlessness.
Experience Terry’s fiery poetry and art in Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue, “Space,” Vol. 5, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Terry Cox-Joseph is former president of The Poetry Society of Virginia and a former newspaper reporter. Her poetry chapbook, Between Then and Now, was published by Finishing Line Press. She was coordinator for the annual Christopher Newport University Writers’ Conference and Contest for ten years. An award-winning poet, she has been published in Northern Virginia Review, Allegro and Chiron Review among others. A graduate of Minneapolis College of Art and Design, she displays and sells her work in Yorktown, VA and online.
Her family, pets and waterfront provide a constant resource for her writing and art. (As well as an unremitting source of income for Stanley Steemer.) She often works long into the night with only chocolate to sustain her.
