Poetry Spotlight: Rick Christiansen's New Book of Poetry
- FLAPPER PRESS
- Oct 7
- 2 min read
By Flapper Press Poetry Café:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café continues to support poets from around the globe and takes great pride in featuring their new work. We continue our series called Poetry Spotlight in which poets are invited to entice readers with a look into their latest work, along with some of the poet's insight, inspirations, and their favorite lines of poetry from their books.
We invite you to submit a poem and a favorite line from the work for the Poetry Spotlight series or submit your poetry and writing to Flapper Press via our regular Submission Guidelines!
This week, we've invited back Rick Christiansen to share his favorite lines from his new poetry book, Not a Hero.
There Is Time for This
In the quiet of a long afternoon,
where shadows stretch like old memories,
two hands, weathered by time,
reach across the worn wood of a café table.
Her laugh is soft, like the sound of leaves
swirling in an Autumn wind,
his smile a slow sunrise,
warming skin long untouched by morning’s light.
They speak of gardens,
of books read and forgotten,
of children grown and scattered
like seeds on the wind.
They smile at each other’s memories.
Now better, shared.
In each pause, the weight of years—
not burdensome, but steady,
a rhythm they both know.
They do not rush,
for time, once an enemy,
now moves gently between them,
a patient observer.
In the spaces between words,
they find a tenderness
that does not question,
a love that has shed the urgency of youth.
Together, they walk into the evening,
the sky an open canvas of gold and ash,
their steps measured,
their hearts quiet but full.
The poet's favorite line:
In the spaces between words,
they find a tenderness
that does not question,
a love that has shed the urgency of youth.
From the poet:
This line is a wonderful manifestation of the love that I have found in this Autumn of my life. I am 68 years-old, and I got married in September of 2024. I never expected to find this kind of connection in my life.
Not a Hero is the book I didn’t know I was writing until I looked back and saw the through-line: survival without mythologizing it. These poems confront memory, masculinity, damage, and devotion—without polish, but with clarity. They aren’t about triumph; they’re about the private negotiations we make just to keep going. Some are steeped in grief or dark humor, others in small, defiant acts of tenderness. I’m not offering answers here, only the honest residue of having lived through some things—and having chosen, again and again, not to break.
Rick Christiansen is a poet who lives and writes in the American Midwest. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Stone Poetry Quarterly, among others. He is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Bone Fragments and Not a Hero, both published by Spartan Press. He lives with his wife, Kim, and their dog, B.
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