Tina Carlson is the author of three full-length collections of poetry. Her third collection, A Guide to Tongue Tie Surgery (UNM Press, 2023) won first place in the NM/AZ book award for poetry. Her chapbook, Obsidian, was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2024. Her essay, Mothers and Manta Rays won second place in the 2025 Tucson Literary Book Festival’s prize for non-fiction She is an editor of the online journal Unbroken.
Obsidian (2024)
New Mexico poet Tina Carlson’s latest book, Obsidian, focuses on metamorphosis. She says poetry can take the otherworldly, the unsayable or the horrific and alchemize them into language that can move and sometimes heal.
Featured Poem: Equinox
Under traffic, a sparrow clings lightly to blue tissue,
scooped for its nest in the poplar’s bent, smooth body.
Wind pulses at the door all day. You cook meat
in a black kettle; its juices drool. My hungry body.
left you in the dream of a blue motel. Empty-handed
you began to dance, sang a song for everybody.
When is a comet a simple blurred eye of dust
and ice? This woman lives in a blanket, is somebody.
She is always looking for home. Wind has helped,
and lovers. They appear in night’s deep body
and love her with the memory of brown wood and snow
in spring. The only home we know: ground, wind, this body.
Upcoming Events
Women’s Voices of Resistance
Women’s Voices of Resistance, with Alicia Elkort, Natachee Momday Gray, Mary Oishi, Michelle O...
June 1 @ 4:00 pmReading in the Round
Details TBD
June 6Reading at Books on the Bosque
Reading at Books on the Bosque, Albuquerque NM, with Cindy Huyser
July 14 @ 2:00 pm