B.L. Bruce's Blog, page 12

New Poems from Award-winning Author B. L. Bruce

In a similar vein as her award-winning debut collection The Weight of Snow, Bruce’s newest compilation of poetry explores the themes of love, loss, and nature–both human and not.

Written in its entirety during a twenty-eight day stay in a remote cabin in the forests of Northern California, B. L. Bruce’s chapbook, The Starling’s Song, affirms and renews the author’s proclaimed lyricism in thirty-five new poems.

B. L. BRUCE is a graphic designer and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in post-modern literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Common Ground Review, and the Monterey Poetry Review. Recently the recipient of the 2014 PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, Bruce is the author of the 2014 International Book Awards Finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the poetry category for The Weight of Snow. The Starling’s Song is her third book.

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Here’s an excerpt from Bruce’s new chapbook, The Starling’s Song, now available on Amazon and all major eBook retailers: 

REPENT

Sunlight soon replaces the gray of dawn.

The cold has now found itself beside me

in the bed, the warmth of your body

long dissipated. I rise halfheartedly,

busy the sleep from my limbs, remnants

of dreams being shaken from me.

I roll up the rugs, sweep the kitchen,

remember to water the begonia.

From the doorway I watch the deer

stray into the garden to nibble the

yellow roses, dark eyes searching—

perhaps a fear I cannot understand—

pronged crowns, sinewed muscles,

every bit of them at attention. I

envy them, free from carrying the

weight of thoughts, driven, unthinking,

by the nature of things. The deer knows

no guilt, no sadness, only wishes to

wander from one haven to the next.

Mist rises from the still waters

of the river. I repent again and again.

We are not born into wickedness.

Left tasting the salt of my tears

in the threshold, I notice for the first

time the green buds on the fuyu

are beginning to color.

 

c. B. L. Bruce, 2016

BUY THE BOOK

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FORCE OF NATURE: AWARD-WINNING POET B. L. BRUCE RELEASES THIRD BOOK

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There is nothing to say that would be as lyrical and eloquent as this poet’s language. She writes as a daughter of California’s wild places. Words lift the edge of ordinary and invite the reader to journey through vivid and vulnerable landscapes.

– Karen K. Lewis, Author and Executive Director at Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

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SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, April 1st, 2016 — Award-winning author B. L. Bruce will release her third book with Black Swift Press, The Starling’s Song, this April. She is planning a book launch party this summer that will celebrate her third release as well as the recent acquisition of her debut collection, The Weight of Snow, by Smooth Stones Press and pre-order by Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

Bruce was awarded the PushPen Press Pendent Prize for poetry in November of 2014 following the selection of seven of her poems in Tayen Lane Publishing’s Poems from Conflicted Hearts anthology alongside poet laureate Alice Shapiro. Several poems in her newest collection first appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies this past year, including Common Ground Review and the publications presented by Damselfly Press and Purple Passion Press.

The Starling’s Song was written entirely during a four-week-long stay in a rustic cabin in the remote forests of Northern California, where this unique backdrop guided much of her work in this collection. Heralded as the “daughter of California’s wild places” by Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference executive director and author Karen Lewis, Bruce’s work continues to inspire nature-mindedness in readers and bestow them with her known lyricism and image-centric verse.

Echoing the nuances of her 2014 International Book Awards and USA Best Book Awards finalist recipient, The Weight of Snow, Bruce’s newest chapbook features thirty-five new poems exploring the arching themes of love, loss, and what it means to be human.

Bruce is available for interviews and appearances. For booking presentations, media appearances, interviews, and/or book signings contact bribruceproductions@gmail.com

CONTACT: Bri Bruce, Bri Bruce Productions | Email: bribruceproductions@gmail.com

http://www.bribruceproductions.net

“The Starling’s Song” Now Available for Pre-Order

The Starling’s Song is now available for pre-order from Amazon & Kindle eBooks!

In a similar vein as her award-winning book, The Weight of Snow, Bruce’s newest collection of poetry explores the themes of love, loss, and nature, both human and not.

Written in its entirety during a twenty-eight day stay in a remote cabin in the forests of Northern California, B. L. Bruce’s chapbook, The Starling’s Song, affirms and renews the author’s proclaimed lyricism in thirty-five new poems.

– – –

B. L. BRUCE is a graphic designer and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in post-modern literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Common Ground Review, and the Monterey Poetry Review. Recently the recipient of the 2014 PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, Bruce is the author of the 2014 International Book Awards Finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the poetry category for The Weight of Snow. The Starling’s Song is her third book.

“The Starling’s Song” (Poetry) COMING APRIL 1st

I’m so happy to announce that my third book and second collection of poetry will be released on April 1st! It will be available for pre-order on Amazon next week and will be available in print on Amazon and in ebook at all major ebook retailers.

Here’s the book’s description and a sneak preview:

In a similar vein as her award-winning The Weight of Snow, Bruce’s newest collection of poetry explores the themes of love, loss, and nature, both human and not.

Written in its entirety during a twenty-eight day stay in a remote cabin in the forests of Northern California, B. L. Bruce’s chapbook, The Starling’s Song, affirms and renews the author’s proclaimed lyricism in thirty-five new poems.

• • • • •

CURSE

There are not mornings as these

when I don’t think of you,

the urge to jump you say you feel

at high places.

There are times I forget who I am,

ford the shallow creek

to visit the yew tree along the bank,

remember again the patterns

like years among the branches,

how slight my one life.

Crows caw from the top of the ridge.

I hear the air move

beneath their thick wings

when they drift over me,

think it an omen, a curse.

I know the pull is deepest

the nearer you come.

I know my demons well.

Featured in B. L. Bruce’s forthcoming chapbook “The Starling’s Song” (Black Swift Press) coming April 1st, 2016.

• • • • •

 

B. L. BRUCE is a graphic designer and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in post-modern literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Common Ground Review, and the Monterey Poetry Review. Recently the recipient of the 2014 PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, Bruce is the author of the 2014 International Book Awards Finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the poetry category for The Weight of Snow. The Starling’s Song is her third book.

 

• • • • •

“Salt” Published in Common Ground Review’s Fall/Winter Anthology

Poem “Salt” included in Common Ground Review’s Volume 12 issue 2, Fall/Winter 2015 Anthology. 

 

SALT

There is a man at the far end of the garden,

seated at a black wrought-iron table. Flecks

of light move over his shoulders, passing

between the narrow leaves of an olive tree.

A gray cat waits nearby, shadowed beneath

the birdbath.

I sit across the narrow terrace from the stranger

and think of you: in the dappled shade of a redwood,

a bitter farewell as you held my chin in your palm,

rubbed the creases from my brows. I am reminded

of the easy way in which you spoke, the wonderful

notes of your laughter, the salt of your body,

your urgent sense of love.

I see your likeness in the stranger’s freckled hands,

yet unlike his soft knuckles, yours were callused

and thick with scars. I know the place in your hall

where you spread plaster over a hole. Was this

the anger that knew the sound of a belt being

pulled through the loops of a pair of pants?

I am watching, still, as the stranger’s gaze shifts

to the woman across from him. She shakes salt

over a plate of sliced tomatoes. I know now

I mistook the glimmer in his eyes for kindness.

 

“Salt” featured in the upcoming chapbook “The Starling’s Song” by B. L. Bruce, c. 2016 Black Swift Press

For more, visit www.bribruceproductions.net

 

“The Starling’s Song” Coming April 2016

Next Release Coming April 2016

Following the 2014 and 2015 releases of my first two books, I’m beginning to gear up for my next work, “The Starling’s Song,” coming April 2016.

Here’s a sneak peek at “Feel,” a piece first featured in Purple Passion Press’s 2015 anthology:

Like every other summer afternoon

the sails unfurl in the blue spoon of bay,

white-capped but not enough to rouse

the silty sand. A pale half moon is

held up in the sky, coerced by those laws

we cannot see. A cattle egret flies east

from the lagoon, caring little for the

shrieking company of the terns,

in from the north and sheltering in the

marshes. A plover cries from the mudflat,

thrumming of waves heaving themselves

at the shoreline. Were you here I’d point out

the coyote’s tracks through the sand,

the distance between where each paw fell,

tell you he was running. I’d reveal the place

where, beneath the dune grass, the gull’s

body lay torn open and hollowed, say

to you, This, this is how I feel.

“The Weight of Snow” Pre-Ordered by Barnes & Noble

I am so pleased to announce that my award-winning book “The Weight of Snow” was recently pre-ordered by Barnes & Noble Booksellers!

2014 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALIST


2014 SAN FRANCISCO BOOK FESTIVAL

HONORABLE MENTION
2014 USA BEST BOOK AWARDS FINALIST

“There is nothing to say that would be as lyrical and eloquent as this poet’s language. She writes as a daughter of California’s wild places. Words lift the edge of ordinary and invite the reader to journey through vivid and vulnerable landscapes. Bri Bruce’s explorations do not shy away from a world where snow can sometimes be ash, or love can be cloaked in loss. Make space, Gary Snyder, Jane Hirshfield, and Ellen Bass, there is a new poet climbing and swimming her way up to claim her place among you.” ―Karen K Lewis, Author and Executive Director of Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

“The poems in The Weight of Snow are heartfelt, skillfully written, and keenly observed fragments of the natural world and our lives there. Bravo.” ―Gary Young, Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, Award- Winning Author of No Other Life, Braver Deeds, and Pleasure

In the award-winning book , author B. L. Bruce explores the many plights of the human species, from the mysteries of the heart and the inescapability of death, to the depths of human emotion. Told from the perspective of a poetic naturalist, Bruce shares her appreciation of the wild, illuminating the profound in the mundane while chronicling the natural world as both an observer and as an irrefutable part of it. Her poems focus strongly on image and locality, conjuring the imaginations of readers and celebrating the beauty in the follies of the human condition and its capacity to grip the soul.

“Nine Passes” Receiving Rave Reviews

Bruce combines a solid mastery of fly fishing, backpacking and love for his family and the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains to produce a book of true importance. . . . This solidly crafted book is highly recommended to fly fishermen and anyone who has gazed at a distant peak with wonder and curiosity.  – Allen Rizzi, Author of The Blackest of Canyons

Mr Bruce weaves an engaging account of his journey to walk in the steps of a famous fly fisherman as well as routes taken by four generations of his family. . . . The author balances technical fishing information, descriptions of mountain beauty and wry observations on backpacking culture in way that will interest anyone. – Susan Gilchrist, Artist

Todd recounts his solo 300-mile hike through the Sierra high country while reminiscing his childhood memories of family backpacking/fishing expeditions to some of the same locations. . . . Its a fairly brisk-reading travelogue that’s unlike any “fishing guides” or novels done in a fly-fishing setting. For readers its a vicarious adventure or stimulus to get out and do it.– Ford Kanzler, Writer for Santa Cruz Waves

Nine Passes, author and outdoorsman Todd Bruce’s deeply personal account of his 300-mile backpacking expedition through the Sierra Nevada, is informed by the author’s vivid sense of history and enduring love of the land. Retracing the route of Charles McDermand, well-known outdoorsman and writer whose landmark 1946 travelogue The Waters of the Golden Trout Country sparked a national interest in the region, Bruce draws upon his fly fishing expertise and his keen familiarity with the land to illuminate the subtleties of the Sierra Nevada’s flora, fauna, and topography.

Bruce’s five-week trek took him along McDermand’s seventy-year-old route, where he hiked the back country, fished the lakes and streams, and climbed the high mountain passes of trailblazers past—one of whom was Bruce’s great grandfather, George R. Goldman.

The trout waters he explores are those of McDermand, of George Goldman, and of Bruce’s kin: Bruce’s mother, father, and siblings, as well as his own young self, who fished those same glinting pools in the previous decades. Nine Passes is a collation of more than six decades of change in the Sierra fisheries, the story of a family, their bonds, and their memories, the techniques and practices of the fly fishing artistry, and the shifting human attitudes that have sculpted these granite-laden mountains.

 

Learn more at www.ninepasses.com

AVAILABLE in paperback at Amazon

Award-Winning Poetry Collection “The Weight of Snow” Now Available in Hardcover

2014 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALIST

2014 SAN FRANCISCO BOOK FESTIVAL

HONORABLE MENTION

2014 USA BEST BOOK AWARDS FINALIST

“There is nothing to say that would be as lyrical and eloquent as this poet’s language. She writes as a daughter of California’s wild places. Words lift the edge of ordinary and invite the reader to journey through vivid and vulnerable landscapes. Bri Bruce’s explorations do not shy away from a world where snow can sometimes be ash, or love can be cloaked in loss. Make space, Gary Snyder, Jane Hirshfield, and Ellen Bass, there is a new poet climbing and swimming her way up to claim her place among you.” ―Karen K Lewis, Author and Executive Director of Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

“The poems in The Weight of Snow are heartfelt, skillfully written, and keenly observed fragments of the natural world and our lives there. Bravo.” ―Gary Young, Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, Award- Winning Author of No Other Life, Braver Deeds, and Pleasure

In the award-winning book