Cecily Markham
Fine Arts
Poetry & Art Creations
Passenger
I am in the body of an immense silver bird streaming
through wind and sky.
It is the night’s time.
All the other passengers
are asleep, but I am awake somewhere over the Atlantic
looking through a window into darkness.
It seems poets are always looking through windows
trying to bring a poem to light.
In these speeding moments
I think of how I am often a passenger
wondering about that place I am going – remembering
the sun in my sister’s smile and the fading blue images
of the friends I leave behind.
How I love them. How I carry with me the memory of their dreams –
Even now we are all moving and streaming through the
Starlit darkness.
Once an immense white horse came running to me
out of a fog over a hill
across a pasture.
Now the sun comes rising
over the wings of birds and Ireland
and I have crossed the ocean again.
About the Poet and Artist
Cecily Markham
Artist Bio
My life in art began as a child. I grew up in an intrinsically artistic home. I have had some formal art training and courses in live model figure drawing & painting, figure sketching, oil and acrylic painting, work in charcoal drawing, and art installation. Beyond this formal training, I am self-taught.
I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia near Washington DC and had the good fortune of spending much of my childhood and young adulthood visiting the array of premiere art galleries in Washington DC - seeing exhibits of both the art masters and contemporary artists. I’m most inspired and influenced by Dutch Baroque painter Rembrandt, Impressionist painters, such as Monet, and Renoir, Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh, along with American Modernist artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, contemporary artist Dale Chihuly, and architect-sculptor and writer, Maya Lin.
I have received awards & publication for paintings & photography from Light Space Time Online Art Gallery including: Special Recognition for the painting, “The Dream Of The Opening” in the Fourth Primary Colors Art Exhibition November 2022; Special Recognition for the painting, “Meetings”, in the Twelfth All Women Art Exhibit ; and for the photograph, “The Stream” February 2023; Special Recognition for the painting, “The Way The River Holds The Night”, and for the photograph, “How many Souls Have Pondered This Sea” in the Fourteenth All Women Art Exhibition January 2025.
In September 2025, I won an Artistic Honor Award from the Circle Foundation for the Arts, headquartered in Lyon, France, in the Art Ideal Book Cover Contest, for my painting, “The Colors of my Mother”.
I have experience with and have created work for both a private commission and public art on permanent display with Pope John Paul II High School in Lacey, Washington for my painting, “So Much Light”. A photograph and prints of this painting were also later used as marketing material for a play put on by the school, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”.
I am an abstract-expressionist and integrated arts artist. My artistic pieces encompass: minimalist drawings & sketches; large oil & acrylic paintings; soft pastel and charcoal drawings; gel pen work on art sketch paper, photographs, and art installations-along with works of my original poems sandblasted on stone-such as marble, granite, slate, and poems etched onto glass, printed on rice paper, and wall hangings of silk. *(The sandblasting of my poetry onto stone has been done by a professional stone carver whom I have worked with collaboratively).
I have presented numerous art exhibits & art installations including solo exhibits in art galleries, a variety of arts events and festivals, schools, charity events, and spiritual centers.
Art is what I seek to make emotionally moving, and hopefully transformative to others.
Sometimes things happen I do not expect. I allow myself the gift of surprise.
All poems appearing on this website and all art works, including paintings, photographs exhibited and used to
illustrate this website, are original works by Cecily Markham. All rights reserved.
White horse photograph courtesy of Kristin O Karlsen on Unsplash.
I am a poet, artist, and integrated arts presenter. I was raised in an artistic home, and I have had a life in poetry since childhood. I graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional Nursing. In my work as a poet, I often draw from the insights and understandings of the human experience, and the human story, which significantly evolved from my previous practice as a nurse. As a poet, I have received multiple awards in poetry. My chapbook: Sisters in Rain, won first place in the national competition, the 7th Annual Women’s Words Award, published by Still Waters Poetry Press in 1997.
Since that time, I have had poems published in poetry anthologies, literary journals, and magazines. Some examples include: in May 2016, I won second place in a nation-wide poetry competition for a poem entitled, The Wishing Stone, published in Hospital Drive-The Literature and Humanities Journal of the University Of Virginia School Of Medicine. My poem, The Corner of Water Street and Fifth Avenue was published in September 2018, in I Hear Olympia Singing: An Anthology of Olympia Poetry, published through the City of Olympia, Poet Laureate Program in Washington State. In May 2020, I had a poem entitled, Mist, published online, with the Washington State Poet Laureate Program project, Poems to Lean On – as well as other online publications of my poetry. In 1998, I won a Bart Baxter Performance Poetry Award sponsored by the Washington State Poetry Association. I have also won first and second place awards in poetry with The Shoreline Arts Council of Seattle, Washington.
My full length poetry book, Lipstick, Old Keys, and The Hand Held Mirror, received an: Honorable Mention, in the Laureate Prize poetry competition with Harbor Editions in January 2024.
In December 2024, I won two poetry awards for poems: I am a woman now of many years, and muse, with Writer’s Digest magazine’s 19th Annual Poetry Competition.
In my work as a poet, I have presented poetry workshops and presentations in my home state, and the Pacific North West. I’ve also provided various artist-in-residencies as a Poetry & Integrated Arts Educator in school settings and have performed poetry in a variety of venues – theater, performing arts and cultural centers, spiritual centers, charity events, and arts & sciences organizations.
In September 2020, I gave a virtual poetry presentation with participants joining the workshop from across the United States, Canada, and Ireland.
My vision for my work in poetry is to creatively bring this fine art to many - promoting a deep resonance with the beauty and transformative power of literature. Engaging a broad and diverse audience of readers and listeners, I invite poetry to tender for others contemplation and reflection, personal growth, and proffer feminine empowerment. My hope is for making poetry emotionally palpable.
Poet Bio
Breast Cancer Journey
I am a breast cancer survivor twice in my life. The first time, 26 years ago, and the second time, 20 years later. In September of 2020, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, and I am still on the journey. Having experienced breast cancer in my life, I never really had any inclination to tell my story publicly, until the fall of 2024. With all the challenges I was experiencing, I woke up one autumn morning, and had an epiphany. In that clarion moment, I felt: “It is time to tell my story.”
On that crisp, clear day, I decided I would write a book of poems on my breast cancer journey. This collection of poems is a work in progress entitled,
“This Is Where The Light Gets In”
My personal journey through Breast Cancer
Poems & Reflections
I do believe the experience of breast cancer is a journey. A very difficult but powerful journey.
I like to think of myself as not just a breast cancer survivor, but as much as possible, as best as I am able, as long as I am able, I reach every day to be a breast cancer survivor-thriver.
I believe it is in that reaching, the spirit within that reaching - is where the light gets in.
The title poem to the book,
“This Is Where The Light Gets In” will be published in the spring-summer issue of, ImagiNews ~ The Journal of Imagery International.
Other Works:
Cecily has two full poetry manuscripts and one chapbook seeking a publisher.
Reviews
NEWS RELEASE: Still Waters Poetry Press… has named Cecily Markham…, winner of the publishing house’s 7th Annual Women’s Words Poetry Competition for her manuscript:
Sisters in Rain.
‘The editor, Shirley Warren, describes Markham’s…chapbook as, “a major departure from the usual ‘controlled emotion’ poetry that usually finds top prize in competitions. Cecily Markham’s poems are utterly passionate; the entire universe steps in to represent intense familial love and the arresting power of hope. A vibrant soul inhabits her work, giving the book an abundant verbal sustenance that clings. Sisters in Rain is a courageous lyrical journey marked with brilliant language”.
“It was my distinct pleasure to be present for Cecily’s presentation at the annual conference of Imagery International. Cecily Markham presented her masterful poem:
Lipstick, Old Keys, and The Hand Held Mirror.
Her workshop was one of the highest of caliber…there is tremendous depth and power in her work…Her presentation stayed with me on many levels long after it was over…I imagine that different people take away different gifts after experiencing Cecily’s work. For me, it healed an old wound that I had been carrying around for years, and cannot thank her enough!
Cecily is a superb speaker. She is kind, dynamic, and approachable. Speaking for myself and those around me, we left her talk inspired and hungry for more…”
— Maureen Minnrehan-Jones
RN and Guided Imagery Practitioner
Author of: Wisdom to Wellness: Healing Your Emotional Sufferings so the Physical Healing Can Follow
Select Works:
P0ems, Sound Poem Video, Poetry on Stone, Paintings, Photographs, Art Sketches, Art Installations
Poems
Leaving Your Hands
There is a hill where we were once
a hill where we are all wanting to go
but I’m still running down the hill
where I last saw you.
Only my breath turned back to see.
A ribbon loosed from my hair
is still falling.
The ocean breaking against my iridescent thighs
is still cool.
The road that is burning is a Star.
My legs are waterfalls pounding out the rhythms
My eyes hold deep the sunbows
in the surprises of April
I was born between three slippery rocks –
There’s my heart loose in the rapids
Screaming a cold breath leaping
Down the river.
Icy are the tears.
Where is the sea my father sang of endlessly?
When I was a girl
I looked up at him
and thought he was the sea.
There is a hill where we were once
a hill where we are all wanting to go.
Earth, in her evening hips
her harvest fields, her lost gold winds
whirling down and down.
The echoes of summer’s words eternal,
the promises, the distances,
the blue-green mountains beyond
We are driving the narrowing road.
The scarlet leaves are leaving me now
Making red wind, rising from
The echoes of word-carved alleys
Voices without a face
Who wrote something darkly
The starless corners
The broken sidewalks around my house
The broken afternoon sun sheer as my own angels
The scarlet leaves whirling away
Autumn leaves becoming birds.
In the flame
My body leaning onto her highways.
There are roads of hills and curves.
Here’s the sharp narrowing turn
I downshift I upshift
Through the windshield
Blind me sun forever, hold me in your shining.
Leaving your hands, leaving your hands,
Running the hills,
My hips are rivers.
Sound Poem Video
Experience a live reading.
Poetry on Stone
she casts the stone far
one stone’s tear
Initiation
(dream images)
Somewhere between sacrificing too little
sacrificing too much
I enter the pool up the stairs
at the top of the mountain where it’s rough
around the edges like a stony lake – and beautiful
I hold the child in my arms
We dip down
bobbing along the barnacled sides pondering
the misty core
You cannot feel the bottom
You can only imagine
You can only wonder
Where you’ll go
When you touch the child in my arms
River. The Wild Man Under
Professional Stone Carver:
Macy Jewell did the sandblasting, from the company:
Macy and Shane Jewell
Reflections Custom Etching
Olympia, WA
I go down under
ground
Where waterfalls rush
I used to pretend, imagine as a child that
running water –
My bath being drawn in a sunny
bathroom rolling creeks by the house crackling water filling
the kitchen sink for the washing of dinner dishes river
Below the switchback of the
mountain not seeing the river hearing
pulses the water’s breath –
I used to imagine crackling running water was applause coming from somewhere
in the universe, my universe,
and I was entering somewhere.
Descending the mountain path I am a dark steady horse . . .
Now my body is all river
Changing along the way
I join hands in air with my wild man
We dance over the blue surfaces images
I no longer know what’s my thin blue dress what
Is the river
My wild man under he finds me
He becomes the river with me
Professional Welding Service:
Zeiglers Welding made the iron stand for the large, 7 & ½ foot slate piece with a different poem sandblasted on each side.
Zeigler’s Welding
Olympia, WA
Paintings
New Way of Being
Whispers
you and me
The Poetry of Everything
Soft garden
Meetings Abstract
The Dream of The Opening
When You Arrive
the way of a stone
Wind and Grass
What could have been
Golden Afternoon
Blue Day
The Colors of My Mother
The Way The River Holds The Night
Photographs
The Stream
Tree on the Cliff
Beach Walk in the Mist
The Way the Light Falls
Waterfall at Tumwater Falls
Reflections at the Pond
Flowers at the Coast
How many souls have pondered this sea
Her Face
Art Sketches
The Dream of Four Blue Chairs
That Dark Wall Where Mystery Swells and Swirls
The Wild Thoughts of Flowers
Signature in Abstract
Art Installations
Bride in the Wilderness
Reviews
“As an artist myself, I've had the pleasure of working with Cecily on several exhibits…She works with bold colors, exact words, and brave performances that are engaging, sometimes calming and sometimes energizing. She is an artist with deep insights…Her paintings, poetry, and performances reveal her enthusiasm for artistic expression and sharing these with the world.”
Sr. Monika Ellis, OSB
St. Placid Priory, Spiritual Director / Artist
“This Is Where the Light Gets In, Cecily Markham’s poem…a brilliant piece of writing! She pulls the reader from the darkness of a cancer diagnosis and transports us into a…narrative in the dream state of pure imagination”.
Rev. Dr. Maureen Hoyt, Editor
ImagiNews
The Journal of Imagery International 
“Cecily Markham is a remarkable artist. She brings a new definition to creative expression with her multi-faceted talents: a gifted poet, vibrant painter, and insightful workshop leader. The commitment to color and depth of character in her work is beautifully reflected and thoughtfully accomplished. The listener, reader, and viewer are engaged participants in a profound belief that Cecily conveys bright light - through words and brushstrokes.
I have had the privilege of working with Cecily on a variety of projects. The success of the annual Images of Peace Art Show and Gala was greatly enhanced by Cecily’s contributions. One of her art pieces landed not only a prominent position in a local private school, but also became the subject of a play that the students performed. An Images of Peace Visio Divina workshop and retreat featured Cecily as one of the presenters… Another of her talents I experienced is her poetry readings and performance art. These were delightfully inspiring works. Not only creatively artistic, but also passionate and professionally delivered. Cecily’s work opens a space for reflection and contemplation.”
Janice J. Ariza,
Bachelor of Arts, Interdisciplinary History, Art History, Religious Studies
Former Gallery Curator & Art Critic, Writer
Upcoming Events
Imagery International Book Group
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PST
Live on Zoom — Free Event
Cecily Markham will be leading a discussion on the story “Initiation in the Underground Forest ~ The Handless Maiden” from the book Women Who Run With the Wolves-Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
Registration for this event will become available in August 2026.
To attend, click the button above, and select “Events” from the menu.Reflections
Sometimes poetry is like opening a window and letting the fresh air in.
To visitors and friends of this site, grace and peace always.
