Inheritance
A collection of poems by Elena Laskowski and photos by Geoff Laskowski
"Inheritance", a collection of poems by Elena Laskowski, inspired by photos taken by her father, Geoff Laskowski, is a creative endeavor suggested by Geoff as an opportunity to merge a father and daughter's respective hobbies: photography and writing. Once Elena identified photos that stuck out to her, she wrote about them, and eventually the notes started to take shape as poems.
For Elena, having the opportunity to combine their respective artistic efforts was "enlightening and refreshing". Their "COVID project" gave them something to work towards, and perhaps even restored a bit of lost creative motivation for the both of them.
The book is available for purchase for $9.99 USD at the following link:
Below are photos from the book along with the title and few beginning lines of each poem. The full gallery of images can be found here.
Guardians pt. 1
We've been abandoned.
When you were young, and the grown-ups all with clasped hands,
They talked of guardian angels. To keep a watchful eye, they said.
. . .
Guardians pt. 2
Fallen
Torn loose
Swept aside
. . .
Mater
To have wholly a piece of oneself
- flesh of my flesh blood of my blood -
Is a mother; an organ outside her body.
. . .
Lullaby for the Restless
Cradle me, blue moon deep
Send the weary souls to sleep
. . .
Divine Femininity
Fingertip blush, caress thine eyes
Awaken to new domain
Rich with blessed breath
. . .
Encore, Arrangement
/A shadow in the night shoots and takes a life blood seeps in the lines in its palms and drips to the hard floors like a river of ink on the sheets of a life written long before they were born in a room with four typewriters and one empty seat . . .
Spark, Stoked, Story
Land of light and shadow
Where all the stories are born:
Rose from the ground/
Fell from the sky
. . .
To be
(Open curtain)
1.
One felt this way of alone
On a cold night in winter
Standing in a spot of blue under
Two hundred eyes stilled,
. . .
Inheritance
Hold on,
Hang in
Don't let it past your skin
Chin up,
Stay steady
We'll go further when you're ready.
. . .
Elena is pursuing a BFA in creative writing at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Writing stories, poems, and snippets of thought has long been a passionate interest of hers. She is proud to have completed a body of work, and grateful to her father for reminding her how it feels to be inspired.