Tag: Connie Post

ONE ART’s July 2026 Reading

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ONE ART’s July 2026 Reading

Date: Sunday, July 12
Time: 2pm Eastern

Duration: 1.5-2 hours
Featured Poets: Jo Taylor, Connie Post, Christina Kallery, Tresha Faye Haefner, Nathalie Anderson

Tickets are FREE!
(donations appreciated)

>> Tickets Available <<

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>> Books for Sale! <<

ONE ART’s partner The Poetry Shop has a number of books by our Featured Readers available for purchase. An opportunity to support a poetry-only online bookseller as opposed to Amazon/Bookshop.org

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~ About The Featured Readers ~

Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia. In 2021, she published her first collection of poems, Strange Fire, and in 2024, she published her second book, Come before Winter (Kelsay Books). She enjoys traveling, attending her grandsons’ basketball and baseball games, and reading old cookbooks when she is not practicing her craft. She has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. Connect with her on Facebook or at jotaylorwrites.com

Christina Kallery is the author of Adult Night At Skate World, now in its 2nd edition from Dzanc Books.  Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, Gargoyle and Rust & Moth, among other publications, and has been included in several anthologies, including Best of the Web and Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Tresha Faye Haefner is an award-winning poet, performer, educator and general facilitator of the fun times. Her work has been widely published and garnered several awards, including the Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and the Pangea Prize. Her first book, When the Moon Had Antlers (Pine Row Press, 2024) was a finalist for the Glass Lyre Poetry Prize. She is best described as an eco-poet, travel-poet, and performance poet. She writes words for the stage, page, coffee shop, words for sitting under a tree alone, and words for reading to someone you love while rowing them down a river towards dawn.

In addition to writing her own poems about nature and other mysteries, her most important role is to help others feel safe and inspired to write work of their own. Most importantly, she is founder of The Poetry Salon, an online learning community where poets meet to share inspiration, education and support as they write together and cheer one another on! You can get new information, updates and invitations to events at The Poetry Salon by joining The Poetry Salon on Substack at ThePoetrySalonStack.Substack.com. 

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the Crab Creek Poetry Prize, Liakoura Award and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her second full length book, Prime Meridian was released in January 2020 (Glass Lyre Press) and was a finalist for the 2020 Best Book Awards. Her most recent books are Between Twilight from New York Quarterly Books and Broken Metronome from Glass Lyre Press.  Broken Metronome was the winner of the American Fiction Award and NYC Big book award for a poetry chapbook.

Nathalie Anderson’s books of poetry include Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, Rough, and the chapbook Held and Firmly Bound.  She collaborated in 2021 with artist Susan Hagen and poet Lisa Sewell on Birds of North America.  Anderson’s poems have appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge, The New Yorker, Nimrod, and Plume.  She has also authored libretti for five operas, in collaboration with Philadelphia composer Thomas Whitman.  Anderson manages the list-serv Lit-Philly that informs about 500 members about literary events in the Philadelphia area.  She has recently retired from Swarthmore College, where she taught as Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English Literature, and served as Director of the Program in Creative Writing.

Affidavit For my Father by Connie Post

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Affidavit For my Father

You were never in the Epstein files
the letters of your name
fell only inside my body

The island you so often frequented
was my room
with its small shelves
and bed partially sunk
in the center

now when I look back
I see scattered paper
and torn envelopes
with a suicide note
never fulfilled

I was the lone reporter
standing there
without a note pad
standing there
with my skirt
half pulled up

I said a quiet goodbye to you
when you went to work each morning
after breakfast you’d go to the driveway
and retrieve the morning paper

but our story was never in the headlines
you died in the same town, twenty-five years
after we stopped talking

all that’s left of my past
is the old flannel night gown
I used to wear as a girl
and my story redacted

like your face blacked out
in a dark room

*

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the Crab Creek Poetry Prize, Liakoura Award and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her second full length book, “Prime Meridian” was released in January 2020 (Glass Lyre Press) and was a finalist for the 2020 Best Book Awards. Her most recent books are Between Twilight from New York Quarterly Books and Broken Metronome from Glass Lyre Press. Broken Metronome was the winner of the American Fiction Award and NYC Big book award for a poetry chapbook.

Three Poems by Connie Post

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Maps

I no longer want
Google map directions

I want to stop at a local gas station
where the people know
how to get somewhere

I will buy a cold root beer
where the soda slightly spills out
the top of the lid

I want someone to understand
the loss of my tire pressure
and for someone to understand
that I’ve forgotten how
to pop the hood

I want the attendant
to tell me why the road
washed out last year

when I search for the money
to pay for my drink and Fritos

I want them to wait a long time
until my purse is an open cavern

I want them to see how long
I can stand there as a half shadow

I want them to see
there is a drought in my mouth

mostly
I want someone to know I’m lost

*

My Body is a Content Warning

The papers and files
are all boxed up

nobody wants to read my bones

these fractures didn’t just happen
overnight

nobody is willing to
sit with my marrow
in a room filled with
crumpled police tape

there is an empty can of mace
in my sleeve

I’ve never used it

all my offenders know me

the only stranger danger is
is my shadow self
sitting on the chair in my room

my body is surrounded
by the weeds of childhood

how many times must
I be told to take better care of myself

how many times
must I cauterize my subconscious

how many times
do I have to remind myself
that my memory
is an untreated hemophiliac

I don’t know how many more ways
to sacrifice this body

the gods are hungry

*

Sleeping With the Light On

You didn’t mean to
but you were too tired

maybe you took one pill too many

maybe daylight savings time
wanted you to exile yourself

most likely though

you didn’t want to find another
curtain in the dark

where the fibers hang like long strands
of your remaining sanity

they were hung
with the crippled hands of a mad man

the curtains
are a tripping hazard
they hang just low enough
to force you to feel
the partial existence
of your makeshift life

as dawn arrives
you erase the word “rape”
from a piece of crumpled paper
by the side of your bed

you get up early
and go to the department store
about ten miles away

you walk around
finding mannequins
that emulate the very expression
you had
when he found you

*

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the Crab Creek Poetry Prize, Liakoura Award and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her second full length book, “Prime Meridian” was released in January 2020 (Glass Lyre Press) and was a finalist for the 2020 Best Book Awards. Her most recent books are Between Twilight from New York Quarterly Books and Broken Metronome from Glass Lyre Press. Broken Metronome was the winner of the American Fiction Award for poetry chapbook.

Three Poems by Connie Post

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Doing Dishes in the Dark

Maybe your eye is swollen shut
maybe there is no ice left
in the house.
maybe washing dishes
is easier than going to bed

maybe your lip is split
with all the sharp words
you held back

maybe your shadow self
gets the silverware cleaner
than the real you

maybe your brain
has tectonic plates
and you are the only one who knows
when they are shifting

nobody has to know
anything about you

nobody has to know
that you left
the grocery store today
because someone saw you
removing the skin
from an avocado
as if it were your own

nobody has to know
that you are insubordinate
to your own sorrows

nobody has to know
that your dreams
have a half life

all you have to say is
“I enjoy doing menial
tasks in the dark”

*

Cite your Source

I check Snopes all day
to see if my thoughts are real

I don’t know if
the dilapidated wall
in the periphery of my vision
is real
or just another place
to disappear

I check my sources
to see
if the barbed wire fence
surrounding
the front of the house
is an actual barrier
or an old shadow
I’ve always known

are my optical illusions
true or false
or just the ink spots
of a mangled life

are the words
coming out of my mouth
audible

am I falling inside
the mirage of my own language

am I
the placebo effect
of someone else’s life

*

The Descent

Your insomnia
is a maniac
who loves you
only when the moon
is diagnosed
as a hallucination

from down the hall
all the radio stations
play songs with lyrics
that are missing every
other word
this is the only time
they make sense

I want the arrogant sunrise
to forget how I’ve sinned
for the sake of my own syntax

I often pray
for the sun to bleed all over me
I won’t explain this
in my memoir later in life
so pay attention
to the sounds of smothering

pay attention to winter
when it leaves you
to burn your left-over fears
at the stake

and the flames
let them burn
let them burn your life
into the ashes
that descend upon you
appearing in vague patterns
like redemption

*

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Comstock Review, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the Crab Creek Poetry Prize, Liakoura Award and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her two full length collections “Floodwater” and “Prime Meridian” were published by Glass Lyre Press. Floodwater won the Lyrebird Award and Prime Meridian was named a distinguished favorite in the 2022 Independent Press Awards. Her most recent book “Between Twilight” was released by New York Quarterly Books in 2023.