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charlie hensler

@chaswriter.bsky.social

790 followers 1.6K following 140 posts

"Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you" - John Ashbery

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 21d

Louise Glück, on fall.

"Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?"

Matins | Louise Glück

You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I’m looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?

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Reposted by charlie hensler

Victoria Chang @victoriachang.bsky.social · 1d

Rest in peace, Ellen Bryant Voigt. You were a force of nature and one of the sharpest people I've ever known. You will be greatly missed.

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 6d

A little ode for a dear one.

The Music Lover

The adagio
was the shadowed street
deep in the neighborhood,
unnamed, a window
open on the green
afternoon.

No one
walked there. No one
came.

When she did, she
stepped into a wind, a lush
crescendo and looked,
looked back again—

disappeared in the sudden
arms of violins.

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Reposted by charlie hensler

Amsterdam Review @amsterdamreview.bsky.social · 16d

Our Fall 2025 issue is OUT NOW!

Featuring an #interview with Keetje Kuipers and works by Sean Thomas Dougherty, Suzy Eynon, Jason Bentsman, Chelsea Dingman, and many more.

Read here: bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #fiction #translations #finearts #amsterdam 🇳🇱

Amsterdam Review Fall 2025 issue is OUT NOW!
Featuring an #interview with Keetje Kuipers and works by Sean Thomas Dougherty, Suzy Eynon, Jason Bentsman, Chelsea Dingman, and many more.

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 21d

Louise Glück, on fall.

"Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?"

2 15

Reposted by charlie hensler

North American Review @northamerreview.bsky.social · 22d

Our newest issue is out now!! Find it online here: northamericanreview.org/magazine

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 24d

I think it’s good to be influenced - I love discovering a poem or writer that teaches me something. but trying to “write like” them - 🙄. I mean if another poet’s horse wanders into your poem it’ll probably have something else to say?

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 24d

I do feel that certain admired writers take my "voice" hostage for a period of time, but when I escape I steal the cutlery.

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · 24d

my narrator

Fireplace scene from The Big Lebowski. Mr. Lebowski sits dejected before the fire, questioning his life in light of the kidnapping of his wife, while The Dude smokes a jay, all to Mozart's Requiem.

Reposted by charlie hensler

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 27d

the unspoken gem of writing a bad poem is knowing it's a bad poem, what a relief, what a gift, what a treasure to know this effort didn't get there and, because you failed to build a bridge the right amount of far, you are that much more aware of where "there" is

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 25

a late dahlia

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 25

rereading this thread, and pondering this: "where the language clearly breaks away from the poet and the poem establishes its separateness".

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 23

"A question to consider during edits, when eyeing a phrase or word: Do I want to stain this word or strain it? Why?"

Reposted by charlie hensler

Stone Circle Review @stonecirclereview.bsky.social · Sep 23

“This is how poems happen for me. Bits and pieces, glimpses and strokes, hints and imagistic nudges, and at some almost-accidental moment it all flies together--not to make sense but to induce a feeling. I call these gifts.”

-- Yusef Komunyakaa

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 21

you may enjoy boat ramps

Reposted by charlie hensler

HAD @havehashad.com · Sep 21

gigantic HAD energy

Bright Wall/Dark Room @bwdr.bsky.social · Sep 21

can confirm

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Reposted by charlie hensler

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · Sep 15

In general, my go-to editing tips/thoughts:

1. Read the piece out loud, preferably loudly. Where your tongue trips is where it's awkward for readers too.

2. Familiar language is bad and is often the result of a familiar tone dragging the piece toward said language. Be different!

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 15

🙏🙏

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 13

The Grateful Dead… Person

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 12

such an utter pleasure to read 🙏

Reposted by charlie hensler

poemakontsa @poemakontsa.bsky.social · Sep 12

Happy Friday with this gorgeousness by James Schuyler

Song

The light lies layered in the leaves.
Trees, and trees and more trees.
...
The violet hour:
the grass is violent green

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Reposted by charlie hensler

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · Sep 10

Molly Brodak

And How Did Your Rapture Turn Out?

Once I
woke up laughing.

Saw the limbs of the pine
row and paw. I heard bells, split geologic.

Did anyone take a photo of me
while I was in the coma? Why, no. No one thought to.

Before, the nights froze in acid orange
streetlight, and we walked in thin shadows.

That was the first time I felt young.
There was no future.

But I came out on the other side—so
your millennium wasn’t like mine,

so what. Remember catching that wet rabbit?
How did it feel. Like dusk—

start at the stars and drop west & the light goes apocalyptic:
indigo, ultramarine, cobalt, turquoise, cerulean.

I said come watch the bats with me,
once. I just kept up.
That’s how.

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 8

To the Ranch House

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 7

Robert Hass, "To A Reader"
#smallpoemsunday

To A Reader | Robert Hass

I’ve watched memory wound you.
I felt nothing but envy.
Having slept in wet meadows,
I was not through desiring.
Imagine January and the beach,
a bleached sky, gulls. And
look seaward: what is not there
is there, isn’t it, the huge
bird of the first light
arched above first waters
beyond our touching or intention
or the reasonable shore.

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charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 7

“bright light and black wings”

charlie hensler @chaswriter.bsky.social · Sep 4

"the gaze that sees but doesn't penetrate"