Small Earthly Space

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In Small Earthly Space, poet Marjorie Maddox and photographer Karen Elias explore our connection with and responsibility to the imaginative and geographical locations we call home. Inspired by the curlew that appears in Ali Smith's lyrical novel, Companion Piece, Maddox and Elias envision a journey that begins and ends with that "long-billed bird" that forages for the "unexpected / unearthed in murky dreams . . . ." When our planetary conditions render even the saints tongue-tied and stuttering, the bird appears as guide, as psychopomp, as Beatrice in a kind of Dantean descent. The journey the curlew initiates requires that we grow humble enough to pass through the smallest of doors, that we confront both regret and ecological devastation, that we experience "the long, slow burn of loss." But the journey is not without hope. As the poet asks: "What if IF still exists?" What might happen if we "delete the expected ending" and "claim . . . the urgent adverb of now"? The last sections of the book take us to those small, earthly spaces that we now visit with fresh eyes, watching as the mists rise over the hills, as the poppy-both symbol and brilliant-petaled flower-reveals the "intoxication of possibility."