Since 2021, Dr. Guertin and Betsy Wilkening have been masterfully blending fiber art with critical scientific topics like global warming, climate change, and environmental threats, all while offering potential solutions. In 2024, Dr. Decker proposed an innovative expansion: a multimodal ekphrastic project that pairs powerful poetry with evocative art.

 

This book is the stunning result. You'll find a diverse array of artwork—from exquisite fiber art quilts to compelling drawings, paintings, and even museum pieces—each carefully selected to illuminate the theme of "making the unseen, seen" and to forge a powerful connection between science and art through the medium of poetry.

 

We strongly encourage you to delve into the Artist/Scientist Statements at the back of the book. These illuminating insights provide brief, accessible explanations that enhance the thoughtful poems, making complex scientific topics relatable and engaging for everyone.

 

It has been a true joy to bring this project to life. We hope you'll return to these pages again and again, discovering new layers of meaning with each reading.

 

Contributors to this book include: Donald Beagle, Emily Bilman, Joyce Brinkman, Sarah-Beth Bradley, Megan Brown, Emma M. Burkett, Samantha Carr, Joan Ellen Casey, Loralee Clark, Tricia Coulson, Marcela Bianchessi da Cunha-Santino, Dr. Kathleen P. Decker, Zoey Dudding, Jae Dyche, Christie King Eckardt , Kerry Faraone, Catalina Florina Florescu, Anna Isabella Fratarcangelo, Chapman Hood Frazier, Dennis Owen Frohlich, Gail Giewont, Dr. Michale Glennon, Marjorie Gowdy, Jody Gruendel, Dr. Laura Guertin, Cathy Hailey, Lauren Haygood, Kate Hedstrom, Wayne David Hubbard, Mark Hudson, Piper Jameson, Robert J. Keeler, Dr. Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Barbara Martina Linde, Sally Harcum Maxwell, Greg McNamara, Susan Copley Novack, Holly Panzera, Sarah Parker, Tessa Peixoto, Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, Lynne Schreiber, Mattie Quesenberry Smith, Ron Smith, Alica Swain, Johannes Vermeer, Betsy Wilkening, Diana Woodcock, Nicole Zwolinski.

Click HERE to order from Amazon
 
Congratulations to all the winners of the 2021 PSV Annual Poetry Contest! We are thrilled to present our yearly book of winners, including upper school students.
So, why publish a book of winning entries? Publishing not only validates poets, it gives others a sense of what wins. Having said that, we rarely use the same judges for the same categories. The standard is simple: whether the poem is strong, not whether it is to the judge’s taste.
The book is also entertaining, elucidating and useful as a work of its own.
What sort of work shines? How to choose a theme? The Poe category is wide open. Others, such as the Bess Gresham Memorial, have a theme.
Notes for future contests: if your poem did not place in any if the categories, you may resubmit it in a different category the following year. We try our best to mix-and-match the judges. We are asking winners of any single contest to skip a year before submitting to that specific category again, to give others a chance to shine.
“In “Virtual, in this Lonely Space,” the 2021 1st place winner, Erin Newton Wells writes,
A flowering branch touches jeweled water.
Tell me how it looks, you prompt,
and say
you never see it as I do until I say it,
the branch painted on silk and its wet
colors run. We carry on for weeks, months,
too long. ...
we carry on with what we can, patching
together the world we used to know.”
In a similar vein of nature, color and connectedness, high-schooler Lacy Powell writes,
“Her skin nurtures and is nurtured—of greens, blues, and yellows.
And every life has roots that run deep.
Every event leads back to her...”
Both poets use specifics, both touch on the universal. Their rhythms and line breaks differ. Yet both deliver a profound message of their own in just a few lines. Good poetry does that--creates and carries a message that crosses boundaries in a few, well-placed words.
I hope that this volume will delight, awaken, and inspire you.
 
Terry Cox-Joseph, President, 2021
Poetry Society of Virginia