Chris Dahl, Concrete Wolf Louis Award Winner for Not Now But Soon
“I imagine the moment before / that moment we can never go back to, the poet tells us in this
collection about the spaces between, the verges. These verses fulfill what poetry is meant to
express: emotion beyond definition, like the ache of longing to slow down time. Dahl uses cats,
figs, polar bears, aging parents to hint at the heaven you have never been able to chart. She
wakes the wild in all of us that longs to range fast and far / through what I can see and into / what I cannot even imagine.”
—Joanne M. Clarkson, author of Hospice House
Remarkable Things I Have Seen with My Own Eyes
Every morning I wake to light.
Every night paints
the window with new shades
of darkness.
All one, hardly to be teased
into separateness—consider
the prism. Where does one
color stop and the next begin?
A continuum, arcing
through an aching blue to end
in undefined shimmer.
I’ve witnessed how quickly
storms blow by, trailing
brief glimpses of backlit wonder.
And leaves—
each one singular,
ensnaring its own personal green,
engaging the wind
in a distinct and individual dance.
Down to my socks and shoes, the
penetrating dyes that rapture
this century’s clothing.
We are rich
with saturation and color.
Some days my hands shake.
Even that is amazing
when on some future day
they will not move at all.
A Pacific Northwest native, Chris Dahl was raised among the brash sighs of fir trees in winter
and the soothing lullabies of grasshoppers and crickets in summer. For close to thirty years Chris
has been a board member of the Olympia Poetry Network and edited their monthly newsletter
which has included a number of her short essays on the art and craft of poetry. Many of the
lessons she passes on came through mentors such as David Wagoner, Heather McHugh, and
Sharon Bryan at the UW where she received the equivalent of an MFA. She also learned much
from Centrum classes led by Lisel Mueller, Marvin Bell, and both Staffords, William and Kim.
A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet, her chapbook Mrs. Dahl in the Season of Cub Scouts
won the Still Waters Press Women’s Words Award. Her poems have appeared in
numerous journals and anthologies, including Bennington Review, The Main Street Rag,
Naugatuck River Review and Thin Places and Sacred Spaces (Amethyst Press) among others.
Visit Chris's page at ConcreteWolf.com
Purchase Chris's collection from your favorite retailer:
Jennifer Saunders, Concrete Wolf Chapbook Award Winner for Tumor Moon
“What can a mother do when her child is diagnosed with a rare tumor, or rather what can poetry
do? Saunders’ Tumor Moon shows us just that, through innovative forms and images that haunt
and heal. She takes us deep into body and psyche, at once clinical and tender, I wanted that— /
for someone to take a knife / to my son. Out with that dark moon / orbiting the future.’ Her
lyrical verse makes transparent the struggle of bearing diagnosis and treatment, the struggle of
getting a story that refuses comprehension into language..
——Julia Kolchinsky,, author of The Many Names for Mother
The Call
Such phone calls always catch you wrong
-footed. You’re on the treadmill at the gym,
sweat slicking your palms.
Or you’re at a poetry reading
when it vibrates its insistence.
Mid-game at the rink.
Never at home, never alone
in a room with a door you can close.
So you arrange your face when the doctor’s number
lights up your home screen, raise a finger to signal
I have to take this. You seek out a corner,
scrim of privacy, press the phone to your ear.
You catch the words biopsy results,
catch very rare. You hear the doctor
tell you not to Google anything
before the appointment tomorrow.
Jennifer Saunders is the author of Self-Portrait with Housewife, winner of the Clockwise
Chapbook Competition (Tebot Bach, 2019). She is also the co-editor of Stained: an anthology of writing about menstruation
(Querencia Press, 2023), a multi-genre anthology that breaks the
silence surrounding the menstruating body. Jennifer’s poems and reviews can be found in Adroit, Chestnut Review,
The Georgia Review, and elsewhere as well as in several anthologies and craft
books including Masque Anthology and The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft. Jennifer’s poem
“Crosswalk” was selected by Kim Addonizio as the winner of the 2020 Gregory O’Donoghue
International Poetry Prize and appeared in Southword. Born and raised in suburban Chicago,
Jennifer nowlives in German-speaking Switzerland with her husband and two children. A
lifelong hockey enthusiast, she has taught skating in a hockey school in Bern, Switzerland, for
over ten years and continues to drive her hockeyplaying son to many, many ice rinks. She has
seen some glorious moonrises and moonsets along the way.
Visit Jennifer's page at MoonPathPress.com
Purchase Jennifer's collection from your favorite retailer:
