Her first book Out of the Third, was published by Momo's Press in 1974. Two chapbooks, A Letter at Easter (1976) and The Egyptian Poems (1983) were followed by the publication of the first volume of A Reading (1––7) (1985), a serial poem that continues to be in process. Since then, four more volumes of A Reading have appeared, A Reading 11-17 (1989), A Reading 8-10 (1992), A-Reading Spicier & Eighteen Sonnets (2004), and A Reading 18-20 (2008). Dahlen was a co-founder, with Kathleen Fraser and Frances Jaffer, of the feminist poetics newsletter (HOW)ever.