Chelsea Dingman
LightNews LightNews
banner
chelsdingman.bsky.social
Chelsea Dingman
@chelsdingman.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.2K following 120 posts
Author of Thaw (@ugapress 2017 National Poetry Series) Through a Small Ghost (@ugapress 2020) I, Divided (@lsupress 2023) PhD Candidate @ualberta Poetry editor @sweetliterary
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
forgottenpoets.bsky.social
From 'Five Poems'
—Humberto Ak'abal (tr. Michael Bazzett)

#poetry #poem #poems
The River Kneeling on a mat, bent over a stone, my mother washes and washes and washes. My little sister sleeps in a basket covered in willow leaves. Me? I am sitting on piled straw, watching how the water leaves and how the river stays.
November 19, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
susanlleary.bsky.social
Proof copy is here, and she’s lovely, so let this be a little reminder that MORE FLOWERS is out with @triohousepress.org in less than 3 months! You can pre-order at the link in the replies or wherever books are sold!

Here’s to more poetry and more flowers!
🌺🌸🌼
The poetry collection, More Flowers, resting against a vase of red carnations. ♥️🌸💐
November 16, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
neiu-cw.bsky.social
Remembering Alice Wong: Writer, Advocate, Friend
Though we were in frequent conversation for a decade, I only got to meet my friend Alice Wong in person just once. And when I did, I  was a bundle of nerves—and that was before she cussed me out wi…
lithub.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
melostrom.bsky.social
“only after breaking was my body/ believable”

This poem by @chelsdingman.bsky.social in @amsterdamreview.bsky.social is so beautiful. (Thanks for passing it along, @pdforan.bsky.social!)❤️
November 17, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
pdforan.bsky.social
“… You are a homesickness
buffered by fantasies of orchids, scotch

pines, daybreak. Blue
graves scattered over cities. People

I tried to love
but couldn’t. …”

@chelsdingman.bsky.social in @amsterdamreview.bsky.social www.amsterdamreview.org/we-have-know...
We Have Known Each Other at Every Hour by Chelsea Dingman | Amsterdam Review
Read "We Have Known Each Other at Every Hour" by Chelsea Dingman
www.amsterdamreview.org
November 16, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
jennanewman.bsky.social
“Death remains my intimate shadow partner,” she wrote…. “It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand 1 day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, & full of love.”
November 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
neonpajamas.bsky.social
Ann Jäderlund

tr. by @johannesg.bsky.social
Out of the earth forest forest mountain river someone has time
November 16, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
susanlleary.bsky.social
Chelsea Dingman ♥️

“There is such violence / in the sunset.”

@chelsdingman.bsky.social
Sunset Do you forget the roar of tiny lungs unsettling your sleep? How I was once, a sparrow lost in the yard? Or was it safer for you to let him open new seams, your scars still so raw? I used to wake and run all of the faucets, as if we lived inside the falls. The house, lit like a constellation. Was I ever yours after that? There is such violence in the sunset. You wanted me to beg, but I held my breath as I wanted to be held. I should have said I wanted sky to claim the stars. That I understood to be a good girl I had to lie low like the aging hardwood floor. But, when I return, it's to stand in the soft light on the sun-porch. To admit the sunsets are drawn by my hand.
November 15, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
maureenthorson.bsky.social
“Carry me out / reel me in” A poem by Kevin Young.
GUTBUCKET I want, like water, you— something wet gainst the back of my throat. Carry me out reel me in I been down this well too long—
October 30, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"Belief gave way / to grief, its purgatories. Who will look out for you / after you are grief enough / to believe in?"

A poem by 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲𝗮 𝗗𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗺𝗮𝗻 @chelsdingman.bsky.social in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
At dusk, the dusk holds the days apart. I am also other than I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness, Simone Weil wrote at the onset of WWII. Still, this almost-hour. Its snows. All that I still have to lose. What grain, what glacier, what child, what plain did I hand my emptiness that I would feel full? Still, I don’t understand why
October 29, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.

—Louise Glück, from "October"
October 25, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social
Listen to Episode 79 with @sarahgreenpoet.bsky.social here: share.transistor.fm/s/23bf7d41

And read the full poem “Apostrophe” here: pioneerworks.org/broadcast/sa...

📚💙🎙️ #poetry #podcast #booksky
@uakronpress.bsky.social
from "Apostrophe" I know now, if I drive long enough, // yearning opens onto a smooth lake in the dark / where I can set down my lanterns like questions. Sarah Green
October 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
poetrydaily.bsky.social
Today's Featured Poem:

"The Bear" by @amiewhittemore.bsky.social from Nest of Matches published by @autumnhousepress.bsky.social

Read here:
poems.com/poem/the-bear/
The Bear
The bear came to me. I did not ask. I did not want.
poems.com
October 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
bookgaga.bsky.social
"My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold all of these?"

#TodaysPoem #poetry
What Is Home? by Mosab Abu Toha (2023 Literary Hub) lithub.com/where-is-mos...
Where is Mosab Abu Toha? A Poem from Gaza in 22 Languages
Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha was reportedly detained in a mass arrest by the Israeli Defence Forces on the morning of November 20, 2023. He was at a checkpoint in Gaza traveling south toward the…
lithub.com
October 26, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
susanlleary.bsky.social
Ellen Bryant Voigt 💙
Practice Ellen Bryant Voigt To weep unbidden, to wake at night in order to weep, to wait for the whisker on the face of the clock to twitch again, moving the dumb day forward— is this merely practice? Some believe in heaven, some in rest. We'll float, you said. Afterward we'll float between two worlds— five bronze beetles stacked like spoons in one peony blossom, drugged by lust: it I came back as a bird I'd remember that— until everyone we love is safe is what you said.
October 24, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
darbylyons.bsky.social
Rest easy, Ellen Bryant Voigt.
Love her poetry, but these two offerings got me through my MFA thesis, and I'm forever grateful.
Book cover: The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song, by Ellen Bryant Voigt Book cover: Poets Teaching Poets Self and the World Edited by Gregory Orr and Ellen Bryant Voigt
October 24, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
forgottenpoets.bsky.social

From ‘This is from Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006’ (2007)
—Ellen Bryant Voigt 💔

#poetry #poem #booksky
After Keats I. If truth is not a thing apart from me, Then I don’t want it. II. —Have you always told the truth? I have always loved the truth.
October 24, 2025 at 9:12 PM
chelsdingman.bsky.social
Ellen Bryant Voigt. 💔
Adagio We never said aloud: into the earth or fire. And if earth, then where. And if fire, then where to cast the ashes. Each thought the other would choose: choosing for two, not one— the body lying flat, the body left upright. And if a stone.
October 24, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
davidnaimon.bsky.social
the transcript is up for the conversation with Diana Arterian: tinhouse.com/transcript/b...
Between the Covers Diana Arterian Interview - Tin House
David Naimon: Today’s episode is brought to you by Heather Clark’s The Scrapbook. This debut novel from Clark is the story of an intense first love haunted by history and family memory. Inspired by th...
tinhouse.com
October 19, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
just-jack-1.bsky.social
Q: Why are my electricity bills going up?

A: You are likely (a) in a region impacted by Trump tariffs and retaliatory price hikes in electricity from Canada, or (b) in a region subsidizing billionaire-owned data farms for AI or crypto mining.

It’s not because of immigrants or drag queens.
October 20, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
rosebudbenoni.bsky.social
Two new Atomic Sonnets in Cream City Review :: Whenever I think of the element Europium, I think of Ultravox’s “Vienna” and is dedicated to my dear friend Jared Harel. As the element Indium, ALLEGEDLY it gives a high-pitched “scream” when bent, o the soft girl era she is.
October 20, 2025 at 2:41 PM
chelsdingman.bsky.social
“Let’s fix our bed it’s in splinters
and I want to stay all year.”

Thinking of this Jean Valentine poem a lot lately.
Friend Friend I need your hand every morning but anger and beauty and hope these roses make one rose. Friend I need a hand every evening but anger and hope and beauty are three roses that make one rose. Let's fix our bed it's in splinters and I want to stay all year. Let's fix our bed it's in splinters and I want to stay all year. Did you hear what that woman on Grafton Street was saying? You won't be killed today. We don't even know were born.
October 20, 2025 at 2:42 PM
chelsdingman.bsky.social
“the way a name, any name,
Is empty. And not empty. And almost enough.”
October 19, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Chelsea Dingman
readalittlepoem.bsky.social
Today’s poem is selected by Joshua Nguyen (@joshuanguyen03.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

“Notes On Staying” appeared in Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen, published by Coffee House Press, 2018. Shared here with deep gratitude.
October 19, 2025 at 2:02 PM