Dr. Colleen S. Harris 💙📚 #booksky #libraries #spoonie

@warmaiden.bsky.social

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Poet, academic library scholar, chronic illness life. Author: The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, 2025), Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025), more. See www.colleensharris.com

book award announcement, photo of white woman with shoulder length brunette hair and glasses, text reads Meet our Tribe Poetry Award Winner Colleen S. Harris, the Discipline of Drowning forthcoming summer 2026
[second half of poem, read 1st half first in othe photo] I know a starving cat I had never seen before stretched and purred itself against my leg, and I felt chosen, and it waited while I retrieved two cans of tuna which was the only way I knew to say thank you in cat. I know my mother knows if I don’t call I’m unwell, and I know my coin of silence only buys me three days. I know Jesus died and was back up and walking in three days, and I know I am not dying. I know this weak body is also a portal of power, and this harrowed flesh has made tall, broad men fear. I don’t know what they thought I would do, but they were certain I would. I know I can make it to morning, I know I have done this before. Colleen S. Harris
Math Quiz How does the point spread of the football game the Raiders lose impact the velocity at which a Redwing boot smashes through the screen of a cathode ray tube television?
Shows a white woman’s hand, tattoos on the knuckles, with long nails painted in oil spill rainbow metallic colors
Courage for my mother, Joanne Is to stand on a stranger’s porch and ask boldly, is my husband here? without flinching in the snow that falls into your hair Is to dance through the year that claimed your mother’s life forty-nine and counting Is to ignore the ache a three-job life sinks into your bones to keep the small house your daughters call home Is to welcome the dark with a staunch belief that that there is a God who lovingly counts the hairs on your head Is to arrange your bedroom so that you wake facing the sunrise Is to start each day with Yes
Book cover is parchment colored, with an anatomical sketch of the SI joint, penvis, hip joint and femur. Book title in red text in lower right reads "Toothache in the Bone," author name in red text beneath reads "Colleen S. Harris"
“The poems in Toothache in the Bone are focused, precise, deeply moving, and each sings in perfect harmony with the others. Not since the late great Galway Kinnell have I encountered a poet who meditates so profoundly and so lyrically on our limitations, while pondering the limitless beyond the confines of the body. I can’t think of a more worthy subject for poetry than to ‘transform this sorry meat into art.'” —Marlon L. Fick, author of The Tenderness and the Wood and Rhapsody in a Circle "In Toothache in the Bone, Colleen S. Harris expertly peels back the layers of the human experience, showing us a wide range of emotions ranging from grief to resilience and all emotions in between, and she does so with a with a clarity that is unflinching. In poems that ache with memory and pulse with pain, Harris gives voice to the stories our bodies carry: the scars, both emotional and physical, and she does it with a tenderness and an openness that left me in awe. [...] Yet even as the reader is taken through a journey of heartbreak, the collection closes with “The Labor of Birthing and Burying My Sorrow,” where sorrow is not buried to be forgotten but planted to grow into something new. Toothache in the Bone blessed me in ways I did not know I needed as I come to terms with my own seasons of sadness and loss. This book operates as a guide for those who are attempting to heal and for those whose healing journeys have already been completed." -Angela Jackson-Brown, author of House Repairs and Untethered
Book cover: royal blue background with a nude figure wrapped in gold light, title The Light becomes Us, author Colleen S. Harris
Photo of Colleen holding a most recent copy of Clackamas literary review
Fishing I call to the bass circling at my toes, pluck their silver sequins to sew into my dress. They dance like harrowed nymphs. I lie back in the boat, trail my fingers in the water to feel their mouths kiss away dead skin. I bait my hook, and they name me traitor. I keep their bodies on ice and fillet them carefully, carefully, as though I am a doctor curing them of something other than life.
Book cover with dark blue background. Faceless human figure with head and arms thrown back wrapped in a yellow sheet that could also be light. Title in top left reads The Light Becomes Us, author name in bottom right reads Colleen S. Harris.
Book cover with dark blue background a human figure wrapped in a bright marigold sheet or fabric is reaching for the heavens. title 'the light becomes us' is in bright yellow in upper left corner, author name 'colleen s. harris' is in blue atop the gold in lower right party.
Photo is the page of a book showing a poem, and fingers holding the page open with nails painted and sparkly green. The text reads : When you came home from the war Your body was a war-torn city. We rubbed against each other And it sounded like violins scowling. We loved like October Maples scream And we loved like Kudzu, overtaking all things. We were lovers because there was nothing else We could think to do with our bodies But burn them.
Book cover has dark blue background with a human figure with outstretched arms and head thrown back garbed in what could be a yellow sheet, or light. Title (The Light becomes us) is in yellow text at upper left, and author name (Colleen S. Harris) is in blue text in lower left.
Book cover. Dark blue background, figure in foreground with chin tilted upward and no visible features wrapped in a large yellow bundle of fabric that looks like rays of light