"In reading these poems, we experience beauty-paradoxically-as well as come to understand the complexity of the crime, its aftermath, and the relief and joy of recovery."—Roseann Lloyd
Perhaps the first full-length work of its kind, One Red Eye is an unexpected book, an intimate story of violence and survival, rape and re-birth, told in verse. In concise, candid, and understated poems, Dierking shares the brutal truth of her own rape experience, while at the same time, demonstrating the possibility of spiritual recovery from sexual assault. This is the story of a life brought to a disasterous standstill, and the subsequent acts of common kindness that allow the author to recapture hope, and move into a changed, but salvageable future. Tough and articulate, One Red Eye defies the silence and guilt that so often surrounds the crime of rape.
I Might Have Dreamed This For a short time after the rape, I found I could move things. Energy birds swarmed from my brain. With a witch's sense of abandoned physics, I set dolls rolling. Back and forth. Like a breathing sound. Using only my night-powered eyes, I pushed the lamp to the dresser's edge. I buried the mirrors in avalanches of freshly laundered underpants. I never slept. I did all these things lying down.Kirsten Dierking received a bachelor's degree in International Affairs and History from the University of Colorado, and a Master's degree in Creative Writing from Hamline University. Her writing has appeared in Sing Heavenly Muse, ArtWord Quarterly, Water-Stone, and Xanadu. She lives with her husband in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This is her first published collection.

One Red Eye: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Dierking, Kirsten

History & Criticism

Holy Cow! Press

Poetry. On Kirsten Dierking's collection of poems NORTHERN ORACLE: "Kirsten Dierking's poems often focus on the small things, the unnoticed natural world around her, 'the unknowable swimmers' in the water beneath the canoe, or the realization of the 'glorious spirit' inside a wild flower. It is this seeing that gives her poems their joy. But it is the unflinching realization that 'you love things that can't help leaving' and that, 'you can't stop/ yourself becoming/ all the white,/ expressionless snow' that gives the poems their strength"--Louis Jenkins.

Northern Oracle

Poetry

Spout Press

Poetry. In her third book of poems, Kirsten Dierking explores the way our everyday desires shape themselves into the miraculous, like "antlers branched in sprays of bone against the sky." In selecting Dierking's work for a McKnight Artist Fellowship, three-time National Book Award finalist Marilyn Nelson wrote, "I found these slight, reticent poems tender and thoughtful. They demonstrate the virtue of withholding, showing that sometimes less is definitely more." TETHER is an exploration of fluid, unseen grace as it manifests around us, building an uncanny and potent now.

Tether

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dierking, Kirsten. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dierking, Kirsten

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dierking, Kirsten. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

One Red Eye: Poems

Northern Oracle

Tether