Poetry

Goddess of Glass Mountains is available from Finishing Line Press. Contact me or the press for review copies.

“In Goddess of Glass Mountains Madronna Holden urges her readers to ‘stay close to the earth against being lost’.  Holden’s poems explore the beauty and mystery of nature, while visiting the magic of the mythic (sirens and goddesses surround these poems). The language is as rich as the imagery.”

— Leah Huete de Maines

Here is a list of Madronna’s published poems, in order of appearance:

2024

“Turtle House” is forthcoming in the Cirque Journal.

“Maps of Blue Wells and Sunlight” and “Indwelling” appear in Kosmos. I am touched by Siobhan Vida Ashmole’s gorgeous soulful video rendition of ”Indwelling”.

“Indwelling” also appears on the Science and Nonduality website.

2023

“The Wild Birds Remind Us” appears in the 2024 Oregon Poetry Calendar published by the Red Shoe Press.

“This Body that Carries Us” appears in Plumwood Mountain Journal volume 10:1.

“Earthquake Woman” appears in the Clackamas Literary Review.

“The Ancestors Have Heard the Bell” appears in the 50th anniversary issue of Cold Mountain Review.

‘Trailside Hush” is forthcoming in Fireweed: Poetry of Oregon.

“Remainders” appears in Valley Voices 23: 1.

“After and Before” appears in Eclectica.

2022

“On Ordinary Days the Earth and Sky Change Places” ,”This Body That Carries Us” and “To Be Consumed” took first, fourth, and fifth places in the 2022 Kay Snow Poetry Contest. I am grateful to be a poet winning honors in this national) contest sponsored by Willamette Writers. I treasure our local poetry community!

“Why We Tell Stories” is the featured poem in Camas Magazine’s winter 2022 “lore” issue.

“The Future of the Sun” appears in Pensive Journal: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts (November 2022)

“Outside Your House the World is Eternal” appears in issue 5 of Quibble Literary Journal.

“To Be Consumed”, appears in The Timberline Review no 11.

“The Moss Knows These Things” (reprinted from Leaping Clear) and “Wild Ginger” appear in the Plant-Human Quarterly‘s 2022 summer solstice edition.

“A Momentary Bee” appears in the gorgeous 2023 Oregon Poetry Calendar, published by the Red Shoe Press, out now.

“Raven Was the One” appears in the winter 2022 Fireweed (accompanied by a sound recording).

“When One Thing Stands” and “What Is Fought Over in Heaven Falls to Earth” appear in the spring 2022 issue of The Clackamas Literary Review: 27.

“Our Dreaming Commons” appears in the former Wood Cat Review.

2021

“Bouquet of Lost Flowers” appears in About Place (October 2021).

“Suite of Cranes” appears in the Hamilton Stone Review issue 45 (fall 2021)

“Dreams of Sand and Bears”, originally published in The Bitter Oleander, was selected as a poem of the day by Verse Daily. Check out this respected online anthology where you can enjoy a new poem gleaned from contemporary poetry publications each day.

“Poem on the Back of a Calico Cat” appears in Fireweed Poetry of Oregon summer 2021. Welcome back to this venerable Oregon publication resurrected by talented poets and editors!

“The Darkness Leans Close In” appears in the Clackamas Literary Review v. 25 (2021).

“Sunset Talisman” paired with David Wolfersberger’s painting, “Sunset on the Willamette Riverbank” appears in the Chestnut Review (April 2021, v. 2:4) Scroll down to the bottom half of this list for other poems paired with David’s watercolors. Here. is also an opportunity to listen to David’s unique music on you tube.

“On Grays Harbor, the Wind” appears in Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place .(Spring 2021 v. 19:2)

“We Know Which Way to Grow by Way the Light Hits Us” appears in Artis Natura (February 2021)

2020

“Rock and Sand” appears in Claw and Blossom (December 2020: Solstice issue: currently on hiatus).

“Dreams of Sand and Bears” and “House of Corn and Squash” appear in The Bitter Oleander v. 26: 2 (October 2020).

“Swimming in the Lake of Light” appears in Artis Natura v. 4 (2020).

“Autumn Grace” appears in v. 4:2 of Ocotillo Review (July 2020).

“The Blessing of Egrets” appears in Timberline Review Issue 9 (2020).

“Our Choice of Stories” appears in About Place’s “practices of hope” issue– some truly moving work in this issue focused on something we could all use more of about now! (2020)

“If the World Were a Literal Thing” and “As Picasso Turned the World to Glass” appear in Poemeleon‘s “truth”-themed issue.(2020)

 “Desert Fire Sermon”, “The Moss Knows these Things”, and “Each of Us Must Someday Dare the Soil” appear in the 2020 spring equinox issue of Leaping Clear.

“All Morning Along the River” appears in the spring 2020 issue (v. 18:2) of Windfall.

Lover’s Lullaby” appears in the February 2020 issue of Pomme Journal.

2018 and 2019

“Polar Bears Dance their Sestina One Last Time” appears in Artis Natura 3:1 (2019)

“If you could tell your story with wings” and “Advice from an Oregon Iris” appear in volume 23 (2019) of the Clackamas Literary Review.

“Storing the Day” (inspired by David Wolferberger’s “Barn for Storing Blue Sky”), and “Before the Mountains Landed” appear in the spring 2019 (v, 2) of Equinox Poetry and Prose.

“Astronaut of Another Earth” appears in Cathexis Northwest accompanied by a sound recording in February 2019.

“The world has not forgotten how to bloom” appears in the Aurorean fall/winter 2018/2019 .

“Map of Falling Water and Rising Trees” appears in the fall 2018 issue (v. 17::1) of Windfall.

---

Here are the poem/painting duets featuring poems written in conjunction with the watercolors painted by David Wolfersberger on his 3500 mile solo bicycle tour of the West Coast. This series concludes with the “sunset” piece published in the Chestnut Review above.

Mirage Drinking” (paired with David’s “Winslow Mesas and Dr. Pepper”), “Disclaimer” (paired with David’s “New Mexico” Continental Divide”) and “The Land Takes My Picture” (paired with David’s “Magma topped mesas west of John Day”) appear in 55:1 (spring 2020) of Puerto del Sol.

“Colors of Belonging”, “Shapeshifting Home” and “Desert Woman” paired with David’s Shoshone River, McKenzie Pass and Kingman, Arizona appear in Santa Clara Review, 107:1 (February, 2020: both in print and online.

“We Aren’t in Kansas Anymore” (paired with David’s “Loveland, Colorado Barn”), “To Be Held in the Arms of the Morning” (paired with David’s “Sunrise over the Sierra Nevadas”), and “Cathedral Meadow” (paired with David’s “Chapel near Snow Bowl”) appeared in the former District Lit (2019).

The following are combined in an online multi-media presentation in The Slippery Elm Literary Journal (2019)

“Picnic table before and after the crowd” (paired with David’s “Richardson Park”).

“When the ocean within us asserts itself” (paired with David’s “Eel Lake”)

“Holding Hands with the Heat” (paired David’s with “Grants Pass”)

“Memory Slough” (paired with David’s “Humboldt Slough”)

“Multiple Choice” (paired with David’s “Tehachapi”)

“I Will Show you Wonders” (paired with David’s “Grand Canyon”)

“Dancing with Bones” (paired with David’s “Ghost Station”)

“Learning to Paint the Wind” (paired with David’s “Wildlife Refuge West of Casper, Wyoming”)

“Wildflower Epilogue” (paired with David’s “Wyoming Wildflowers”).

“The Rattle on the Tail of Things” (paired with David’s “Navajo Wetland”) appears online in spring 2019 in Cold Mountain Review (also available in print: 47:2))

“Heresies” (paired with David’s “West Eugene Sunset”) appears in the Exposition Review’s “Wonder” issue (2019: 4).

“Strawberry Medicine” (paired with David’s “Medicine Bow Laramie Mountains, Wyoming”) and “Our Earth-Bound Souls” (paired with David’s “Bighorn River & Mountains”) appear in the winter 2018 issue of Leaping Clear. Their facebook page (5/21/2019) honoring national meditation month, international meditation day and the birth of the Buddha also features David’s lovely “Medicine Bow” watercolor joined with Madronna’s poem, “Strawberry Medicine”.

“Pitching your tent in the ashes” (paired with David’s “Burnt Forest”), “Chasing wheels” (paired with David’s “Rockies East of Santa Fe”), and “Painting from Memory” (paired with David’s “Avenue of the Giants”)  appear in About Place’s “rewilding” issue (2018: 5:1).

---

“Ask the River” and “To Flower in the Rain” in the sidebars here are ;also Madronna’s poems. “Be inevitable/fight like the sun fights for the day” is a line from her “Badger Medicine”.

Here are links to older poems posted on this site.

Do Not Worry about the Dry Season (published in the anthology Dona Nobis Pacem.)

Advice from the Cemetery (published in Fireweed).

Before the eyes of the earth we are eternal (published in Fireweed)

The Revolution below Us (published in Green Fuse)

Prayer Sticks on Bald Mountain (published in the Oregonian)

Chewing on the Moon (published in The Christian Science Monitor)

The Descent of Inanna

The poems that make up the theater piece, “The Descent of Inanna”, were performed by the Eugene Chamber Theater and written in community with producer Catherine Vandertuin, musician Jeffrey Allen and the remarkable actors that embodied this ancient myth. (See link above).

——————————

Thank you for being the audience that is so essential to art.. And just a gentle reminder to all those reading these poems and viewing these paintings– they are under copyright and should not be reproduced in any form without permission.