~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of April 2026 ~
Tag: Timothy Green
Two Poems by Timothy Green
To Noise: An Assay
after Jane Hirshfield
We act as though you were only a nuisance.
An irritating addition to the system of being.
A no thing, never not there. A mosquito
in the ear. A buzz in the air.
We only listen in your departure:
When the power cuts off in the heatwave,
and the condenser ticks to a stop.
So many sounds in the house to unnotice
all at once. The hum of the fridge, the plastic fan
in the computer, the transformer’s static prick
from the yard.
And then an airplane in the distance.
Children playing at the corner park.
Bird calls to bird, neighbor to neighbor,
a car zips by with its window down, one song
in three notes.
But in between each of these, your absence
is the death that was before we were,
the lack of even lack we know will come to be.
Science says a little noise adds speed to a network.
A quiet classroom makes it harder to learn.
A hundred miles up, there is no noise above the atmosphere.
There is no sound in the airless
hell beneath our feet.
You are a blanket within the blanket that keeps us warm.
The shapeless there we press our thoughts against
to give us form.
*
How to Pack a Parachute
First know: you should never pack
a parachute unless you know how
to pack a parachute. Knowing is hard,
but the packing is easy, like anything
else—is as simple as checking the lines
for twists and tangles, flaking the canopy,
shaking loose the folds that shouldn’t
be folds, and then folding: s-fold, s-fold,
tuck, tuck, cinch. Try this: Empty a room
of all you’ve ever owned. Place yourself
on your back at its center, so that your
arms outstretched stretch to nothing.
Feel the weight of the air. Remember
that you were always landing there.
*
Timothy Green has worked full-time as editor of Rattle magazine since 2004. He’s the author of American Fractal (Red Hen Press, 2009) and two haibun crown chapbooks with his wife, Katie Dozier: Hot Pink Moon (Fungible Editions, 2024) and Did You See the Moon Honey (Fungible Editions, 2025). He’s host of the livestreaming Rattlecast and Critique of the Week, and co-host of The Poetry Space_. He lives in Texas with Katie and their family. timothy-green.org
ONE ART’s January 2026 Reading
ONE ART’s January 2026 Reading
Sunday, January 11
Time: 2:00pm Eastern
Duration: ~ 1.25 hours
Featured Readers: Katie Dozier & Timothy Green
>>> Register Here <<<
About The Featured Readers
Timothy Green has been the editor of Rattle, managing its operations since 2004. He hosts Rattlecast and Critique of the Week and co-host of The Poetry Space_. He is the author of American Fractal (Red Hen Press) and co-author of Hot Pink Moon and Have You Seen the Moon Honey (both Fungible Editions) with his wife, Katie Dozier. He holds a masters in professional writing from USC, has been a contributing columnist for the Press-Enterprise newspaper, and co-founder of the Wrightwood Arts Center. He lives in The Woodlands, Texas, with Katie and their family.
Katie Dozier, a former professional poker player, is the author of All That Glitter (forthcoming with The Poetry Box Press), and Watering Can (Alexandria Labs). She’s the co-author of Hot Pink Moon: A Crown of Haibun, and Have You Seen the Moon Honey with her husband, Timothy Green. She loves long conversations about short poems. Katie is the creator of the top-rated podcast The Poetry Space_, the Haiku Editor for ONE ART, and an editor at Rattle.
ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2024
ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2024
- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
- Betsy Mars
- Donna Hilbert
- Abby E. Murray
- Robbi Nester
- Julie Weiss
- john compton
- Tina Barry
- Timothy Green
- Kim Addonizio
- Andrea Potos
- Kari Gunter-Seymour
- Callie Little
- Alison Luterman
- Robin Wright
- Sally Nacker
- Trish Hopkinson
- Christina Kallery
- Vicki Boyd
- Terri Kirby Erickson
- Susan Vespoli
- Bonnie Proudfoot
- Scott Ferry & Leilani Ferry
- Martha Silano
- Joan Mazza
Note: Some poets were published multiple times in ONE ART in 2024. Links are to each poet’s most-read poem(s) of the year.
Four Poems by Timothy Green
The Secret
We had to stop for gas and spent the night
in the town’s one hotel. A mirror on the wall
was the portal to another world. All night
I lay awake, watching the other couple lying
there. The man twisted around his sheet
like a rope he was climbing. The woman’s
shoulders at the far end of the bed. There wasn’t
much distance between them. Every minute
the clock gained a minute. Every hour, one
of them stirred. In the morning came the light,
rising slow like a tide over the dingy carpet.
Soon, they were drowning in it, even while
eating their eggs.
*
High-End Hotel
The heavy door’s high-end lock
beeps behind you after the whisper-
click of the air against the high-end
doorframe, and you shuffle down
the long hall of doors like dominoes,
each one sleek as midnight, deep
as the hole at the center of the galaxy,
each room its own universe flecked
with stars you move past at the speed
of light over the high-end carpet
whose lushness is not lost on your
slippered feet, a fabric so soft you
find yourself personifying, as if you
were a masseuse, your feet a massage,
and it thanks you, yes, the carpet
thanks you for pressing your heels
deep into its tissue as you tirelessly
trot to the elevator room, its gleaming
bank of metal doors a modern ladder
angels must ascend, but you descend
with the rush of a fatal drop, 39, 33,
so many floors, the numbers proudly
speeding up, then slowing down until
you reach the lobby, its celestial spheres
of chandeliers, and the man at the desk,
his attire more crisp than bacon, more
crisp than the freshest apple, more
polished than you would feel lying
prone at your own funeral, manicured,
minted, laced with the mortician’s
makeup, your face finally in death
a work of art, your casket itself not
as polished as the high-end stone
he stands behind, as you ask, in your
most confident voice, where you
might find the ice machine, there
were no signs, you see, and usually
there are signs, but no, he tells you,
we have no ice machines here, dear
plebeian, so please proceed backward,
up the elevators, down our longest
high-end hallway, and simply text
this fine desk for room service.
*
The Royal Estate
The sad prince was sad that he didn’t know
sadness. A butler brought his every whim.
Fetch me four hummingbirds playing the
harmonica, he’d said just this morning,
and here they were, blurred wings buzzing
against the silver lid of the dinner tray,
the harmonica propped up on a pair of
golden wishbones, everything gleaming.
And they were quite the quartet, two Anna’s
on the high end, a Rufous and a helmetcrest
taking bass. They even knew showtunes
and seemed pleased when the prince could
guess them, though the prince only sighed.
Next time, bring me something I don’t want,
he said to the butler, still perched at the door.
Didn’t I just? the butler replied. Through
a window behind them, across a long
courtyard at the far end of the great garden,
the lonely prince was watching with his
telescope, the words lost to the distance.
He handed it off to one of his several
handmaids. It wasn’t yet time for tea.
*
Typical Day
They turned a corner, climbed some concrete
stairs, and there it was: the park they’d never
leave. It rose from the hill like a dream. There
were people and frisbees. A dog chased a ball
off its leash. The blossoms were blooming.
The bees wove their way through the weeds.
It had been quite the journey to get there,
all the trains and the transfers, the tokens and
turnstiles, the numbers and letters, the red
and the blue and the green. Their feet were
sore from the walking. Their shoulders were
pink from the sun. It was a typical park from
a distance. But they knew that it was the one.
*
Timothy Green is editor of Rattle magazine, host of the weekly Rattlecast, and co-host of weekly The Poetry Space_ with Katie Dozier. He’s the author of a book of poems, American Fractal, and lives in Wrightwood, California.
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of March 2024
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of March 2024 ~
Thanatosis by Timothy Green
Thanatosis
My daughter won’t share a room with a spider but cups the giant stink
beetle in her own two hands, shows me how the shell is strong, how it’s
light as the air around it. Bigger than her thumb, she loves how they
move with a slow grace. It’s only playing dead, she tells me, setting it
down on the side of the footpath as if it were a game.
morning dew
every blade
bows to you
*
Timothy Green is editor of Rattle magazine, host of the weekly Rattlecast, and co-host of weekly The Poetry Space_ with Katie Dozier. He’s the author of a book of poems, American Fractal, and lives in Wrightwood, California.
ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023
~ ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023 ~
1. Abby E. Murray
2. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
3. Betsy Mars
4. Donna Hilbert
5. Linda Laderman
6. Alison Luterman
7. Julie Weiss
8. Robbi Nester
9. Roseanne Freed
10. Karen Paul Holmes
11. Heather Swan
12. Timothy Green
13. James Diaz
14. Jane Edna Mohler
15. John Amen
16. Barbara Crooker
17. Jim Daniels
18. Susan Vespoli
19. Sean Kelbley
20. Susan Zimmerman
21. Kip Knott
22. Jennifer Garfield
23. Margaret Dornaus
24. Paula J. Lambert
25. Gail Thomas
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2023
Guilt by Timothy Green
Guilt
A black bear lounges in the cheatgrass,
chewing at our trash. It must have found
the chicken we’d forgotten in the freezer.
Five pounds of free range meat, meaning
that when the meat could move, the bird
had its own two square feet in which
it could turn its two feet. That if it so chose,
it didn’t have to touch its neighbor. At one
end of the grow-house was a door to the sky.
How the brighter light must have beckoned.
By law, that door must be open half the day.
The dirt run on the other side must have one
living plant. But the birds don’t care. Bred
for their size and stupidity, they spend their
40 days at the feed trough, gaining strength
in the constant jostle for premium space.
It’s not unlike the bears in Alaska who fight
for the right to have salmon leap into their
mouths. But also it’s different. For three years
in our freezer, water from that warehouse
that was stored in the muscle of our chicken
sublimated and refroze, forming ice where
the ice shouldn’t be. Now the meat isn’t tender.
But the black bear doesn’t care, and its fur
is a cinnamon. It looks so soft in the sunlight
that it calls us all to sleep. Soon we’ll call
our bravest neighbor, who will run at the bear
with a pair of pots. From a distance we’ll join
in the banging. It’s for his own good.
A problem bear might be shot. But for now,
let him eat. Body numb with impossible pleasure,
only his mouth is moving, his muzzle buried
in the grease and the goo of the garbage bag,
as if these were the fallen shards of heaven.
For a black bear in the dry grass, they are.
*
Timothy Green works as editor of Rattle and is the author of American Fractal (Red Hen Press). He also serves on the board of the Wrightwood Arts Center and is a contributing columnist for the Press-Enterprise.
Railroad Tracks by Timothy Green
Railroad Tracks
Side by side, we lie level
on a bed of stone.
When you, my other rail,
pull me to the right,
I pull you back.
But when I’m bending far,
I too feel the tug of the ties
beneath me.
In this way
we cross the desert.
Hot to the touch
in the heat of the day,
the children lay coins
on our backs. Soon,
the weight of the world
will be rushing
between us
in screeching sparks.
But first the thundering
hum of our harmony,
and then how long
it lingers after.
*
Timothy Green works as editor of Rattle and is the author of American Fractal (Red Hen Press). He also serves on the board of the Wrightwood Arts Center and is a contributing columnist for the Press-Enterprise.