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These Many Cold Winters of the Heart Editorial Description

These Many Cold Winters of the Heart is dancing splinters of Life, and that inevitable experience of Death that our common humanity demands we all share. A book of blue-collar poetry, with a surrealist bent, this work is also a reminder of the importance of that great swelling laughter that must always persist under the hard advancing glare of these many unforgiving days.

Praise for These Many Cold Winter’s of the Heart

“I felt an instant connection to Ryan Quinn Flanagan (RQF)’s words the first time I stumbled across his work online. RQF is a prolific, unassuming champion and chronicler of off-kilter humanity. In his new collection from Roadside Press, These Many Cold Winters of the Heart, RQF returns to dust off his wings after, once more, being a fly on the wall. Here is a writer who understands that poetry exists everywhere, and that most people don’t see it. If they do, most lack the skill to distill the sadness in «The Nacho Lady at the Midnight Bingo;” the regret of the Narrator in, «Did you Amber Heard your bed again?;“ or the mix of bravery and confusion of the boy in «Black Motorcycles.» On each page we encounter pieces of ourselves, or people we know, despite the unique details. «Lucky to be in the nuthouse,/ I thought./ We were living/ in strange times,» writes RQF in «The Yellow Bed.» Indeed. We are lucky to have these strange missives, fresh from our current, absurd reality.”—Jordan Trethewey, author of These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood

Sample Poems from These Many Cold Winters of the Heart

We Finally Made It Down

It has been far too long for many things.
The heart twists like a fusty dish towel wrung dry of life.

But we have finally made it down to the city.
To see the commemorative bench outside the Barrie Public Library.
Dedicated to my uncle Larry, known around town as "The Reader."

Lived on the street his entire life.
Spent his days at the library, reading all the books.

And now he is gone, but there is this bench with a gold plaque.
It is early Fall and the leaves are changing.
My wife takes a few pictures, then we pay our respects.

A large homeless encampment outside the courthouse 
across the street has been dismantled.

There is fenced off road construction all around.
The life of the city goes on.
Sirens in the distance and hungry jackhammers 
on the prowl.

Foreclosure Town 

What the level of hand soap was at 
when your brother died.

I would never forget that.
How many rings were failing the shower curtain.

How many tubes of toothpaste were left in the pantry, 
were all the labels facing out?

That is the difference.
I remember everything.

How the air felt against the side of my nose
as the wind picked up.

Peeling railings on my fingers.

Those careless brown flecks with the orange underside.
How nothing seems to get everywhere.

(first appeared in Rusty Truck)

©Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Purchase Links

You can purchase These Many Cold Winters of the Heart on Roadside Press and Amazon in paperback format.

Paperback

Author Biography

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author who lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as: The New York Quarterly, Rusty Truck, Evergreen Review, Red Fez, Horror Sleaze Trash and The Blue Collar Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.