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Ahrend Torrey at Lafreniere Park
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Photographs of Ahrend Torrey by Jonathan Dacula

The Thicket

 

        “In a murderous time

         the heart breaks and breaks

         and lives by breaking.

         It is necessary to go

         through dark and deeper dark

         and not to turn.”

 

                   —Stanley Kunitz

 

 

We’re in the thicket: the thicket concealing stars: the thicket filled with that which can’t be seen beyond us—which is right before our eyes? Keep trudging. Or should we turn? No,  keep pushing branches from your eyes: thorns, let them drag, tear the tender membrane of your skin. A pack of coyotes howl in the frozen field beyond us—straight ahead and slightly to the right, which is possible, they could encircle us! Keep trudging. Or should we turn? No, keep trudging   toward home—

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From Running Among the Trees—​New & Selected Poems

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Official Website of Ahrend Torrey's Poetry, Including the Latest Release

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RUNNING AMONG THE TREES—

NEW & SELECTED POEMS

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(January 2026)

(For every copy of this collection that is sold via the Lulu bookstore, a donation will be made to the Jane Goodall Institute or similar organization)

SELECTED POEMS

{later versions are published in the books below}

Field Crickets (First Published in The Westchester Review)

It Doesn't Have to be Lavish to be Grand (First Published in The 2River View)

Watery Dazzling Dialectic (or A Gender Proem) (First Published in West Trade Review)

During Saga Dawa, I Walk to the Marsh; You Should Too (First Published in The Curator)

Proem, After Langston Hughes (First Published in West Trade Review)

Li Po (First Published in MORIA)

Reading Larkins Aubade, Well Before Sunup (First Published in Twyckenham Notes)

Out of All The Ways It Could've Happened (First Published in storySouth)

Still (First Published in Welter)

Rising Light (First Published in Eunoia Review)

Wisteria (First Published in storySouth)

Southern-Faggot Blues (First Published in The Black Fork Review)

Deep Field (Tonight you've turned away from everything…) (First Published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature)

Time Does Not Exist (First Published in Thin Air Online)

Red Giant (First Published in The Dewdrop)

Minneola Oranges (First Published in The 2River View)

The Monarchs are Dying (First Published in Pinyon Review)

Near the Branch (First Published in Eunoia Review)

Pastoral (First Published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature)

Ferns (First Published in 805 Lit + Art)

Books

BOOKS

{please click on a book cover to learn more}

Running Among the Trees—New & Selected Poems

(January 2026)

Soon
This Moment by Ahrend Torrey

This Moment

(May 2024)

If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant: The Jane Kenyon Erasure Poems by Ahrend Torrey

If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant: The Jane Kenyon Erasure Poems (January 2024)

Ripples: Poems by Ahrend Torrey

Ripples

(February 2023)

Bird City, American Eye by Ahrend Torrey

Bird City, American Eye (April 2022)

Small Blue Harbor by Ahrend Torrey

Small Blue Harbor

(March 2019)

ABOUT

Poet Ahrend Torrey at Lafreniere Park

Ahrend Torrey (he/him) is the author of Running Among the Trees—New & Selected Poems (Lulu Press, 2026); This Moment (Pinyon Publishing, 2024); If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant: The Jane Kenyon Erasure Poems (Pinyon Publishing, 2024); For What Are the Blossoms Reaching? (Limited Artist's Edition, American Academy of Bookbinding, 2023); Ripples (Pinyon Publishing, 2023); Bird City, American Eye (Pinyon Publishing, 2022); and Small Blue Harbor (Poetry Box Select, 2019). His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly; North Dakota Quarterly; Panorama:  The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature; Slippery Elm Literary Journal; storySouth; The Greensboro Review; The Perch (a journal of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, a Program of the Yale School of Medicine); The Westchester Review; Welter; and West Trade Review, among others. He is a recipient of the Etruscan Prize awarded by Etruscan Press, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize several times. He lives in Chicago with his husband, Jonathan; their two rat terriers, Dichter and Dova; and Purl, their cat. Read more at Poets & Writers Directory.

Bio
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