Overview

Terri Cohlene has crafted a book of surprises in her debut poetry collection, A Conspiracy of Blackbirds. The wide ranging poems are contained only by the boundaries of her life experiences and imagination. The poem ""On the Table"" has a massage therapist attempting to knead away a smattering of adversaries inhabiting her past: from ex-husband to childhood bully to a mother ""lodged like a lizard / around my sternum-"" The poems are poignant, laugh out-loud clever, and above all, insightful and touching. She dives deep into her relationship with her estranged mother, a woman who was abused and abandoned by her own mother, who in turn repeated that script with her daughter. For those of us wounded souls who came from rocky beginnings, Terri's voice is a kindred spirit, sorting difficult truths on love and rejection, childhood and aging (with disease) that many of us will find all too familiar. Even so, Terri's poetry is witty and accessible. Her use of language is tight and clean: in the poem ""The Ocean Pours Out"" (one of my favorites), she writes of a high school gymnasium orchestral concert conducted by her daughter: ""I make my nest [on the bleachers] in the midst of magpies, / a clutch of chatter about bake sales and raffle / tickets... and whether that really / was Coach Sweeney making out with the president / of the PTA last night behind the Dairy Queen."" A Conspiracy of Blackbirds is a master class in self exploration while looking at one's life in the rearview. I highly recommend it. -Patrick Dixon, author of Waiting to Deliver and Mending Holes Terri Cohlene's A Conspiracy of Blackbirds chronicles how one woman breaks free from a multi-generational cycle of abandonments to reach for the sky in a transformative murmuration of stunning flight. This collection is nothing short of an uplifting triumph of spirit and strength as only poetry can deliver. - Sandra Yannone, Fire at the Big Top, and Host, Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry

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9781970256086

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Reviews

Terri Cohlene has crafted a book of surprises in her debut poetry collection, A Conspiracy of Blackbirds. The wide-ranging poems are contained only by the boundaries of her life experiences and imagination. The poem ""On the Table"" has a massage therapist attempting to knead away a smattering of adversaries inhabiting her past: from ex-husband to childhood bully to a mother ""lodged like a lizard / around my sternum-"". The poems are poignant, laugh-out-loud clever, and above all, insightful and touching. -Patrick Dixon, author of Waiting to Deliver and Mending Holes Terri Cohlene's A Conspiracy of Blackbirds chronicles how one woman breaks free from a multi-generational cycle of abandonments to reach for the sky in a transformative murmuration of stunning flight. This collection is nothing short of an uplifting triumph of spirit and strength as only poetry can deliver. - Sandra Yannone, Fire at the Big Top, and Host, Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry

Author Information

Terri Cohlene is the editor of Godiva Speaks I & II: Celebrations of Women Poets in Olympia. Her poems have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies such as: Shadowplay, The Raven Chronicles: Last Call, Pontoon, and America at War. She looks forward to the 2026 release of Unsinkable: Poetry Inspired by the Titanic. She has taught the craft of writing at The Richard Hugo House and Whatcom and Shoreline Community Colleges. The author of nine books for children, and the former creative director of a small press, she is co-designer (with her son Ross Cowman) of two tabletop role-playing games for Heart of the Deernicorn. She also wrote and assisted her daughter Jody Cohlene Urbas in two productions of the stage play A Fine Circle of Friends. Landing at last in Olympia, Washington, via Bellingham, Bothell, Juanita, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Mt. Baker, Green Lake, Queen Anne, Pullman, Skyway, Renton & Cashmere, Terri knows her way around Washingtonstate. It is here she divides her time & creative energies between writing, editing, game design & serving on the board of the Olympia Poetry Network, helping produce monthly poetry programs as well as special events such as Laureate LoveFests: international celebrations of poetslaureate. She recently co-curated Let It Burn, Let It Float: the 35th-year anthology for OPN subscribers. In this tentative world where Alice-in-Wonderland feels right at home, Terri Cohlene finds sustenance in exploring the contrariness of it all. Sometimes up is down and down is up, and ""bones are needed to protect the heart!"" And sometimes, blackbirds make conspiracies. Visit Terri's webpage: terricohlene.com Lana Hechtman Ayers shepherded over 150 poetry collections into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Sky Over (Fernwood Press, 2026) is her most recent collection and she has poems appearing in numerous journals, such as The London Reader, Peregrine, and Comstock Review. She lives in Oregon with her beloved husband and fur babies on the unceded lands of the Yaqo'n people. On clear, quiet nights she can hear the Pacific ocean whispering to the moon.

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