Poet’s Press: Medicine of the Edison

Editor’s Note: Poet’s Press is a quarterly series, presented in partnership with the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, that features news poems — an experimental form that examines local people, places, and events through a personal, poetic lens. Paired with original artwork, each piece invites readers to engage more intimately and reflectively with the life of our community.

Medicine of the Edison

The Edison is the medicine that heals the soul — 

Nights are beautiful but dark as coal. 

From graffiti art to telephone poles, I may not live here, but this place is home. 

Spent half my life dreaming of a place like this, 

grew older to find out it really exists. 

Birds chirp and crickets speak. There’s no place I’d rather be. 

The Edison is a magical historical place that moves the mind in many ways — from the parks we skate to the shops they make.

The firehouse is always great. First Fridays, don’t hesitate, just let it all resonate. 

All of us musicians and poets, on the grind, showing our devotion. Creativity has many emotions, fluctuating like the ocean,

bringing flavor like apple cider, standing stronger than blocks of iron. Every writer shares the same desire to be heard before time expires.

Author’s Statement: “I wrote the poem the way I did because I want to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. I want the reader to use their imagination and try to visualize the Edison from the perspective that I’m describing it in.”

Artist Bio: Savannah Scheffers is a Kalamazoo-based artist. She experiments with digital, watercolor, and oil-based mediums to make primarily multimedia pieces. Through her art, she explores themes relating to society, youth, and perception of the environment. She has published 3 works through Second Wave’s Voices of Youth Program, in which she has created art to accompany solutions-based journalism articles. Through Second Wave Media’s partnership program with the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, she was able to create artwork to pair with a poem.

Artist Statement: “To me, this poem inspires a feeling of hope and wonder. Like the hot sun rising after a bitterly cold night, the Edison neighborhood warms the wandering soul. I represented this between layers of watercolor and oil pastel on cold-pressed paper. I chose to focus on the aerial view of the residential parts of Edison, with the sun rising just above the lush treeline.”