Geraldine Connolly

Geraldine Connolly and Dion O'Reilly

25 JANUARY 2026 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Geraldine Connolly, Instructions at Sunset, and Dion O'Reilly, Limerence, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PST (poetryflash.org).

The featured books will be available at the event and Geraldine Connolly's new book is also available on bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash. This event will be posted on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClwdR-uPFNz7XxbBbLcnoEA. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Geraldine Connolly's new poetry book is Instructions at Sunset. Elaine Terranova says, "Connolly is a poet who dwells in nature. She examines the world through the magnifying glass of observation and the lens of imagination. In awe of "the crystal axe of winter," she thrills to two red foxes, their "tails on fire." The sun blazes through these poems, highlighting the small miracles that grab the poet's attention—the lake where "minnows shuddered" under the water, the desert "with its brown crust," and the forest with its "sky the color of bruised doves." Connolly has published five previous poetry collections. She has taught at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland, The Chautauqua Institution, and University of Arizona Poetry Center, and has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland Arts Council, and Breadloaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review, and Poetry Ireland Review. Her work has been anthologized in Poetry 180: A Poem A Day for High School Students, A Constellation of Kisses, and The Sonoran Desert: A Field Guide. She lives in Alameda, California.

Dion O'Reilly's new book is Limerence, finalist for The Floating Bridge, John Pierce Chapbook Competition for Washington State Poets. Her prevous books are Sadness of the Apex Predator and Ghost Dogs, winner of the Independent Press Award for Poetry, Dragonfly Award for Poetry, and more. Denise Duhamel says, "O'Reilly's Sadness of the Apex Predator is a tour de force with urgent poems that address the perilous present and the past that's gotten us here. She writes astonishing poems of her personal history of severe abuse and world history of severe abuse. She even contemplates poets taking "a break / from our ruined selves / in favor of our ruined country." A burn survivor, O'Reilly writes visceral poems addressing not only the pain but also vulnerability—"I had no skin. / I'm sorry. I had no skin." In later poems she returns to the body—its pleasure and difficulties. These are wonderful and necessary poems." Her work appears in Rattle, New Ohio Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, and The Sun. Most recently, her work was chosen as a winner of the 17th Annual Narrative Poetry Prize. A podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, private workshop facilitator, and co-editor of En•Trance Journal, she splits her time between the Santa Cruz Mountains and Bellingham, Washington.