Tag: CL Bledsoe

ONE ART’s August 2026 Reading

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ONE ART’s August 2026 Reading

Date: Sunday, August 2
Time: 2pm Eastern
Duration: 2 hours

Featured Poets: John Amen, Tina Barry, Tim Mayo, Francine Witte, CL Bledsoe, Kip Knott

Tickets are FREE!
(donations appreciated)

>> Register Here <<

~ About The Featured Readers ~

Kip Knott is a writer, photographer, and part-time art dealer who travels the back roads of the Midwest and Appalachia in search of lost art treasures. His writing has appeared Best Microfiction and The Wigleaf Top 50. His book of stories, Family Haunts, is available from Louisiana Literature Press. His most recent book of poetry, Rothko’s Gospels, is available from tiny wren publishing. You can follow him on Instagram at @kip.knott.

Tim Mayo’s poems and reviews have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Barrow Street Journal, Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, River Styx, and Salamander among many other places. His poems have received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. His first full-length collection of poetry The Kingdom of Possibilities was published by Mayapple Press in 2009 and was a finalist for the 2009 May Swenson Award. His second volume of poems, Thesaurus of Separation (Phoenicia Publishing, 2016) was a finalist for both the 2017 Montaigne Medal and the 2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award among other honors, and his chapbook Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper (Kelsay Books 2019) also won an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Eric Hoffer Chapbook Award. His latest collection Muscle Memories of Love and Disaster was published by Bainbridge Island Press in March 2026. He lives in Brattleboro, VT, where he works at the Brattleboro Retreat, a mental institution, and is a founding member of the Brattleboro Literary Festival.

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe’s poetry collections include Riceland, and his newest, Banana for Scale, as well as his latest novel The Moon On My Back. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.

Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City. Please visit her website francinewitte.com. She can be found on social media @francinewitte.

Tina Barry is the author of Beautiful Raft and Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing 2019 and 2016). Her writing can be found in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including ONE ART: a journal of poetry, The Best Small Fictions 2020 (spotlighted story) and 2016, Rattle, Verse Daily, trampset, SWWIM and elsewhere. Tina’s third collection I Tell Henrietta, with art by Kristin Flynn, was published in 2024 by Aim Higher Press. She has three Pushcart Prize nominations as well as Best of the Net and Best Microfiction nods. Tina is a teaching artist at The Poetry Barn and Writers.com.

John Amen was the recipient of the 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and the 2024 Susan Laughter Myers Fellowship. His poems have appeared recently in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and Tupelo Quarterly. His sixth collection, Dark Souvenirs, was released by NYQ Books in May 2024.

Trebuchet by CL Bledsoe

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Trebuchet

I don’t know much, but I know this:
the flow of wind through your hair just
before the brick wall is the best it gets.
I’m up and not crying, as the Norwegians
say. I’m perched on the wall’s edge like
a fat egg. Call it summer. Call it when
you have no one else to call. My friend
says the flaws in one’s poetry
are the flaws in yourself. That’s why
my poems sleep alone. They talk
too much. They don’t appreciate
how bad it could be.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe’s poetry collections include Riceland, and his newest, Banana for Scale, as well as his latest novel The Moon On My Back. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.

Life Cycle by CL Bledsoe

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Life Cycle

First, I was the wind, turbulent and unknown,
sneaking into gardens to steal shadows,
touching your hair while you rushed, late
for work, yearning only to be clear of here.
I would run through my days, eating the sun
and writing letters to the moon. It was bliss.
It was nothing at all. Then I hardened
into stone, loved and mean, I understood
nothing and wanted even less. After enough
years had passed, someone threw me
into the eye of beauty. I rippled, wanting
for the first time to know. Afraid of the wind
lest it steal something. When the sun came out,
I melted into sulfur, clean as a wound.
When you whispered my name, I suddenly
understood: there’s nothing to learn. Only be.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels If You Love Me, You’ll Kill Eric Pelkey and The Devil and Ricky Dan. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.

Upcoming Reading: Sunday, 10/27 — 7pm Eastern

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Sunday, October 27 — 7pm (Eastern)
Featured Poets: Ace Boggess, CL Bledsoe, Anton Yakovlev, Jason Gordy Walker
Tickets available here (Free or Donation)

~ About The Featured Poets ~ 

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Anton Yakovlev’s poetry collection One Night We Will No Longer Bear the Ocean was published in 2024 by Redacted Books, an imprint of ELJ Editions. His chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Poetry Prize. The Last Poet of the Village, a book of translations of poetry by Sergei Yesenin, came out from Sensitive Skin Books in 2019. Yakovlev is also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks: The Ghost of Grant Wood (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Neptune Court (The Operating System, 2015). Originally from Moscow, Russia, Anton is a graduate of Harvard University and a former education director at Bowery Poetry Club. More info here.

Jason Gordy Walker’s poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Confrontation, Measure, ONE ART, and The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. X: Alabama, among other places. His reviews and interviews can be found in Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, Subtropics, and the blogs of Dos Madres Press and NewPages. He has received scholarships from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Poetry by the Sea, and other institutions, and he earned his MFA from the University of Florida and his MA from the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Currently, he lives in Alabama and practices translating Norwegian poetry.

Who Shot Mr. Moonlight by CL Bledsoe

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Who Shot Mr. Moonlight
          after a song by Bauhaus

Someone shoot nostalgia
in the back so I can get some sleep.
Its chattering never stops.
A constant comparison that never
existed. The future is coming
and I can’t find my pants. I’m hiding
in the bushes while all the cars go by.
Families walk past while I sit
and read. It’s exhausting, all this dying.
But better days will surely come.
I just have to try harder.
Consider the mundaneness of clocks;
I can’t turn my eyes away. We’re
all looking for something nobler. Kierkegaard
said we settle for the level of despair
we can tolerate. Wouldn’t that be nice?
To turn off the struggle and snuggle in.
The blind door in the background
of the soul, behind which there is nothing
except cheesecake. It’s better
than telling strangers about your backsplash.
I was so young, then. Fat and soft. I still am.
Watch me roll down this hill. Watch me run.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels If You Love Me, You’ll Kill Eric Pelkey and The Devil and Ricky Dan. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Three Poems by CL Bledsoe

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Dirty Sink

A dirty sink with a flower-print background.
This is where I rinse off my thoughts
and prayers. A dog no one will pet.
Better a diamond with a flaw than
a Republican official. A saint is one
who knows mankind but loves us anyway.
There are many vacancies but few
applicants. Mostly, everyone wants
to work but they want to be able
to eat more. It’s shocking that you don’t
realize that. There are two kinds
of people: those who do the work
and those with good credit scores.
I would like to love myself, but I’m not
my type. You have to turn the faucet
on before the water starts to flow.

*

I Can Rise from the Ashes Like a Phoenix Only So Many Times.

I can no longer hop into your bed
without stretching and a hard drink
first. I’ve learned my lesson about you
and your daydream version of yourself
that exists nowhere outside of your
mind and a police report. I can see
the rivets in your concern. The seams
stretched to breaking. This is how
you care for the world; with a smirk
and nary a second thought for how
the flames will ruin the ceiling frescos.
I’ve listened to all of your dreams
and categorized them into wish fulfillment
or psychopathy, with a small percentage
left to grow flowers from. You can see
the scars on my arms from your suckers.
It was all a terrible misunderstanding
completely on my part. I’ve compiled
a categorical list of regrets and types of meat
I’d like to cut through to get to the soup.
Your name is at the top. Look, we’re
all falling apart. That doesn’t give us
the freedom to live in the liminal
when it comes to the heart. Put some skin
in the game or fold. Move over
into the slow lane for once in your life.
Some of us have places to be.

*

I Wish That I Could Cry Like You Cry

There’s a pile of grief on my living room table.
There’s a stack of old losses whose faces I’ve forgotten.
Somebody order some chicken nuggets, we’ve got mourning to do.
Somebody close the windows, the death stink’s getting out.
A layer of dust in which to draw rude pictures.
A layer of dust that is our own tribute paid to death.
I want to slap the sun’s face for looking too close.
I want to glare at the wind for copping a feel.
I’m never going to know what happens next or what happens now.
I’ll never remember to change the litter or get a cat.
I sleep all morning and lie awake at night.
I sleep in the sun and huddle through the night.
I don’t care what you said; none of it was true anyway.
I remember all the times you said what I wanted to hear.
Another drink so I can remember what I’m supposed to forget.
Another drink so I can tell this thing the way I want.
Everybody dies alone, but you’ll die alone more.
Everybody makes mistakes, but they don’t set up home there.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Two Poems by CL Bledsoe

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A Burning in the Air

There were things I meant to say
about the struggle to take light in
hand. The longest travail of human
history has been where to find
water and how to take it with
us. Light’s like that. It will be all
around except when we need it.
It’s easy to forget the power of
darkness, the way it quiets the roar
of the world. There is a kind of catfish
in a cave in Kentucky that never
sees light. I’ve lived in houses
like that, full of eyeless complainers.
Light is so forbidding they gave it
names but couldn’t make it love us.
If you look too closely into its
eyes, you lose yours. There are great
penalties for wanting to see things
more clearly. One has to wonder.

*

Date Night

On our movie date night, you snuck in bourbon,
collapsible cups, Coke, sparkling lemon water.
A woman down the row glared while we got
drunk on a passable superhero movie. Legs
entwined. I have to stop myself from touching
you every few seconds. Your lips, your eyes, so
beautiful my heart sputters like a man proved
wrong. I want you upside down in the back
of my eyes. I want to kiss your neck, your soft
skin against my lips, the smell of your hair. After,
we drank more at the arcade downstairs, played
broken games until we won enough to trade for
a gift for my daughter. You rode home with me,
too wasted to drive, and made scones with too
much sugar while we watched Christmas movies.
Once, you asked me what my happiest memories
were. It’s you, that next morning, curled into my
chest. Your breasts and stomach while you were
getting dressed. The shape of your lips
when you say my name.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

ONE ART’s 2023 Best of the Net nominations

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ONE ART is pleased to announce this year’s Best of the Net nominations!

Eligible poems were published between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. As a poetry journal, we had the opportunity to nominate six poems.

The nominated poems (in no particular order) are as follows:

Ona Gritz – Dear Advice Columnist
CL Bledsoe – Working from Home
Whitney Hudak – ISLAMORADA
Donna Spruijt-Metz – Sarah Returns to Me as a 100% Organic Cotton Round
Kaitlyn Spees – Bloodmeal
Claire Taylor – Here Lies a Woman

Thank you for these poems!

Two Poems by CL Bledsoe

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Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

I turtled my days, a wince of light.
You come to my bed every night.
Your bloodshot eyes won’t remember
my number for long, or maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe the end will come in flames and no one
will be left to complain about how hard
it is to push air through stiff lips when all
anyone wants is to be a capybara with a never-
ending supply of lemon cheesecake. Can’t you see
that I’m dying? Your love
is like the knife scarring the tree; everyone
can see your name on me. That used to be
enough until I sobered up. But I’m not sober.
I’m your only friend, and that hurts worst of all.
I blocked your number, and I’m waiting
for you to call and tell me you saw.
The trees are muttering complaints. The wind
is unhappy with its wardrobe. So much matters
to those who don’t care at all. Everything
that you touch breaks. I wanted
to be your hands. I wanted to be the shards
on the floor.

*

Working from Home

You want to say something nice to Tim,
your coworker, who is dating five women,
but your brother just died, your ex-girlfriend
is slowly being revealed as a narcissist,
in hindsight, and when the shame spiral,
the panic attacks flare, you’re trying not
to think about the bottles of sleeping pills,
the opiates in your bathroom. Your ex-wife
says it’s PTSD. You can barely make it till 4
without mixing a drink. He messaged to say
he’s worried because the one he likes made
a joke about marriage. You say communication
is what makes a relationship strong. He says
he’s dumped two of them. The last time,
he was dating three, broke it off with two
in the same night and then the third dumped
him a week later. What makes her so nice?
you ask and he says they come from similar
backgrounds, she makes him laugh. Your ex
was the most charming person you’ve ever met.
Her attention was like a spotlight, and you got
to be a star while she shone on you. As long
as you dressed the way she wanted, didn’t say
or do the things she didn’t like. As long
as you pleased her, every moment, and didn’t let
her grow bored. When things would finally start
to feel safe, she’d complain of it being stagnant.
When you finally felt something close to loved,
she’d say she needed space. Tim says this woman
likes him maybe too much. I’m great but not that
great, he says. You’re aight, you say. Your ex
told you the kindest things anyone has ever told
you after she destroyed you one morning. You’d
driven home, shaking and crying while she chatted
on the phone about her plans for the day, and after
your emergency therapy session, you told her
your therapist said you should stick it out (but have
an exit strategy), she was shocked. Were you
thinking about breaking up? she asked. You’ve
forgotten all those kind things, but you’ll never
forget that morning, in the hotel, your joy, your love
forever evaporating. You never really loved me,
she said the last time she called. You just wanted
to be saved, which is exactly what she wanted.
Tim bought a house and is learning how paint
works, the difference between wet and dry shades.
Your ex calls drunk saying how lonely she is,
and when you start to say sweetheart, she says no.
You don’t get to call me that anymore. She says stop
loving me so we can be friends. No one else
could ever want you, you know. Not like that spotlight.
That’s part of what she taught you in the hotel,
and every day you were together and every day
since. Your sister calls to say she’s been crying
for days about your brother and you say what
I wouldn’t give to be able to cry. You say my brother
died, too. Tim has been getting sloppy drunk at work
since we’ve been working from home. His seasonal
depression. What you wouldn’t give for yours
to only happen in the winter. You drink most
days but don’t make mistakes. The wisdom
of age. You don’t get to see your daughter
as much now, so you’re adrift. Your ex talked
about children when she was sloppy drunk.
What a shitshow that would’ve been, but you
would’ve done it. You’re young, you want
to tell Tim. Life will get so much harder. But
maybe it won’t, for him. He’s good looking.
He’s confident. She would take your arm
and walk beside you to the movie theater,
to dinner. All your life, you’ve just wanted
someone to love. Ever since your mother died.
What a cliché. You have so much love
to give, a friend once told you. It feels good
to talk about this stuff, Tim says. Is there anything
I can help you with? No, you say. But thank
you. Just take care of yourself.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, The Bottle Episode, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue located here: https://medium.com/@howtoeven His own blog, Not Another TV Dad, is located here: https://medium.com/@clbledsoe He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

ONE ART’s 2021 Pushcart Prize Nominations

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Congratulations to Chad Frame, Heather Swan, Erin Murphy, Kristin Garth, CL Bledsoe, and Eric Nelson!!

Read these meritorious poems here:

Chad Frame – Shepard

Heather Swan – On the Day After You Left This World

Eric Murphy – Revision Lesson

Kristin Garth – Sometimes a Cigar is Not Just

CL Bledsoe – I Wish You Were Fun

Eric Nelson – My Brothers

Two Poems by CL Bledsoe

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I Wish You Were Fun

I don’t know what the birds are singing
about, but I suspect it’s something to do
with their sciatica. Mirrors begrudge us
for not being Picassos. All sadness and past
due bills while needing a haircut. I wish
I was fun. I wish fear didn’t strangle my smile
while I am just trying to get the shopping
done. There’s so much weight on my
shoulders I can’t look up without something
important sliding off. Laugh. At least
I’m not Ayn Rand. It’s a different kind
of fear. That I can’t open enough
to the world or that I can’t close fast
enough. Either way, no one is happy
with every new recipe. When I close
my eyes and think of you I see commercials.
So many times it’s about flirting with the void
when all you want is to be held by the darkness.
I’m sorry that you aren’t happy, but I’m not
going to be your midlife crisis. The difference
between an adventure and a mistake is all
in the telling. These days, I’m all mistake.
Coward cowering indoors for fear of storm.
I’m already wet and I have so far to go in
these squeaky shoes. But you remember
when I was fun. Were there ever days
before these?

*

Mornings, Feeding the Fish

There was a different smell in the morning.
The cows were quiet. The breeze

came in from the Lake down the hill.
The sun hadn’t heated the dead

fish, yet. You could believe the world
was new, just because it hadn’t

seen light in a while.

*

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, Driving Around, Looking in Other People’s Windows, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and the forthcoming The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue located here: https://medium.com/@howtoeven. His own blog, Not Another TV Dad, is located here: https://medium.com/@clbledsoe. He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.