Chelsea Dingman's first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press (February 2020). She has won prizes such as: The Southeast Review's Gearhart Poetry Contest, The Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize, Water~Stone Review's Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association's Creative Writing Award for Poetry. She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). Her work is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, and TriQuarterly, among others.
A black mare, the wind.
Black stones strike the windows, rain
-water rushing inside stone walls,
hail stoning the walls of this
heart I dream. I dream
the children were never born
so they cannot die when maybe
it was I who never lived
because I couldn’t keep them
alive. The stars buried in the wells.(More …)
I confess: hurt isn’t even the word
for that dark room
or what I saw there. The door
opened. I swung & swung.
My hand broke. You cried. I wanted
to take back our whole lives & throw them(More …)