Liz Ahl
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surlyacres.bsky.social
Liz Ahl
@surlyacres.bsky.social
630 followers 580 following 160 posts
it's a coup
https://linktr.ee/lizahl
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surlyacres.bsky.social
I didn't know when I chose them that these treasures by Natalie Diaz & @ired0mi.bsky.social would be the last books I taught as an English prof (taking a last minute buyout in grim conditions). These books, individually, are terrific. Together, in conversation? Holy smokes. Revelation & balm, both.
two poetry book covers side by side, Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz and Echidna by essa may ranapiri
November 6, 2025 at 2:06 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
These gladiolas threw blooms for over two weeks and every day I was so happy to see them.
four gladiola stems is a vase
August 31, 2025 at 2:55 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
On the bright side, it's tomato cobbler season!
a white dish full of tomato cobbler
August 21, 2025 at 11:53 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
black and white photo of peter gabriel, the cover of his album SO
July 27, 2025 at 2:02 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
July 3, 2025 Lace of last light seeps through tree filigree while live free or die fireworks pop off somewhere past these oaks and maples, mixing with automatic weapon fire maybe from the gun range maybe just neighbors asserting their ownership of the air ordnance either way blunt syllables uninterested in being understood and the startled crickets pause their own old song in the rush of echo and somebody pledges allegiance to this percussion, under god, this reverb, and then, finally: full dark, slow thunder gathers steam, rolls out a promised rainstorm, shushing the other drumming, washing, weeping, cooling the burnt dust and bent peonies, hissing against embers and lead.
July 4, 2025 at 1:56 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
My poetry students and I made chapbooks and we love them!
a selection of twelve handmade chapbooks
May 5, 2025 at 11:18 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
ABOVE AND BEYOND “Please let us know of any faculty and staff you would like to nominate for going above and beyond this semester. . . . We'll make sure that the people you've nominated receive a certificate of appreciation.” –email from the admin The air’s already thin up here – the bright cold zone just past life-supporting, but still a distance to survivable – here, we continue to rise, slowly, into strictly breathable, the oxygen rarer but sufficient to sustain the machines of our bodies if we don’t move them too much – it’s harder now, but sometimes we can remember what we left, are still, are always leaving, down beneath the clouds, though we are encouraged only to look above, beyond– we are, after all, still alive, acclimatizing so well, and mission control is so proud of our achievement, they are issuing proclamations in our names– they encourage us to practice believing that this shallow panting is actually breathing, that the oxygen available is oxygen enough– and we shouldn’t tax our respiration with worry: so many thousands of feet still remain between this zone– with its sufficient shallow sips of oxygen– and the Armstrong limit, where blood begins to boil inside the body, where they would never send us, but just in case, they are hard at work on a special suit, a special set of wings–
December 21, 2024 at 9:48 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Matthew Shepard should have turned 48 today.
photo of Matthew Shepard in a gray sweater
December 1, 2024 at 1:07 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
I am so happy to be connected with you here! Let me welcome you to Bluesky with a brief moment of my own fan-girling about your deeply affecting work -- a screencap from my September Facebook:
Image of the cover of the book, "Calling for a Blanket Dance" by Oscar Hokeah, along with a brief facebook post praising and recommending it.
November 20, 2024 at 5:35 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
"how do I explain / this restless search for beauty or relief?”

Needed a treat. Some art. This poem from @dseuss.bsky.social was already on my bookshelf, great poem in a stellar book, but a little letterpress always does me just right. Nice work, Kalamazoo Book Arts Center!
broadside of Diane Seuss' poem, “I drove all the way to Cape Disappointment but didn't," with a woodblock or linoleum printed image evoking a sparkling surface of water
November 18, 2024 at 11:44 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Got a new t-shirt just in time for my reading at the town library. Felt punk. Might delete later.
the torso of a person wearing a black t-shirt that says "What's more punk than the public library?”
November 15, 2024 at 2:38 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
When the seasonal candles palette matches the game palette.
A board game (Beer and Bread) set up with game pieces and cards next to a green plate with three unlit candles — one in the shape of an orange pumpkin, one a green gourd, and the third a pale yellow Day of the Dead skull.
November 11, 2024 at 1:34 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
I was there in 2015, on a "Moondancer" fellowship. Worked on poems, explored some of the springs, met some great writers. Here's Grotto Spring, one of my favorite spots.
the entrance to an underground spring at the fot of a wooded rocky hillside and a lamp post in the foreground
November 9, 2024 at 11:24 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
New(t) poem up at Elysium Review —

www.elysiumreview.com/liz-ahl.html
photo of a red-spotted newt from https://fieldguide.lewisborolandtrust.org/reptiles-amphibians/eastern-red-spotted-newt/
September 30, 2024 at 12:46 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Makes me think (fondly) of @rachzuck.bsky.social's THE POETICS OF WRONGNESS, which you should read.
April 25, 2024 at 9:29 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Undergrad, master's, PhD.
a city sidewalk, and a sign that reads Deli Haus restaurant truly unique Red neon sign on a city building, street level, reading "the original hot dog shop" next to a blue neon sign reading "home of the "o” fries A giant white rooster on a red pole outside Lee's Chicken restaurant
November 29, 2023 at 12:56 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Fun "rejection note erasure" thread at that other place. I made a couple.
thanks very much for the opportunity to review your decline. Dear Liz, your poems we wish them elsewhere
November 5, 2023 at 9:45 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Today in poetry class: we made collages inspired by poems (everybody had a different source poem); finished collages were randomly redistributed. Assignment: write a poem inspired by the collage you got. I took the source poems back so poets won't feel encumbered by them as they draft. My collage:
a photographic collage containing an eagle eye, scrap of map, living and dead deer, green leaves, green water, and an autumnal mountain landscape
October 20, 2023 at 12:28 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
birds eye view of a dark brown drink on the rocks, two cherries
October 8, 2023 at 1:19 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
From July: play some Scrabble, draft a poem. The finished (?) poem is out at a journal…
a completed scrabble board a page from a journal, drafting a poem from some of the Scrabble game words and documenting the steps
September 17, 2023 at 12:54 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
This made me remember a bit I copied out from THE POETICS OF WRONGNESS by @rachzuck.bsky.social —
"The poetics of wrongness wants a poem that will not last forever because it is fresh, alive, unstable, potentially (hopefully) useful at a now moment even if sometimes the poem is on its deathbed. The poetics of wrongness is not afraid of hospice. Everything fresh expires. The poetics of wrongness wants poems with a shelf life, made with living ingredients." (31)
September 16, 2023 at 11:48 AM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Glad to have a poem in this beautiful issue of Passager.
impressionist painting of rocks in colorful water Liz Ahl (NH) Stock (p. 38) I had long wanted to write a celebration of my partner's magical/medicinal home-made chicken stock; attention to the detail of the work brought me into language which also aspires to celebrate her more broadly -- how she is a force of comfort and healing in my life. In short, it's a chicken stock poem and a love poem. Liz Ahl landed in central New Hampshire over twenty years ago, never having lived anywhere more than two or three years, with the exception of six years in Lincoln, Nebraska slowly earning her Ph.D. in English from UNL. She has traveled to all fifty states and overseas to several countries and still loves a good, long road trip. Her most recent poetry collection is A Case for Solace (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022).
September 15, 2023 at 9:48 PM
surlyacres.bsky.social
Great reading last night by @oliverdelapaz.bsky.social — on the very day he was long-listed for the National Book Awards! Glad to have this book in my hands, and here's one of the poems he read that really got to me.
Cover art: Painting of people, walking away, their backs to us, carrying luggage, wearing backpacks, etc. page/text of the poem, "Diaspora Sonnet on my Father's Guns”
September 15, 2023 at 11:59 AM