B.L. Bruce's Blog, page 4

“Rainsong” Winner of the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry

RAINSONG

What of this winter here?
The unhappy song of rain and
wind in the bay laurel,
rainwater in the fountain
a mixing of what is ours
and what is not.

I go to the meadow
when the storm has slowed
to see what has changed,
what unknowable thirst was quenched:

the howl and fury in the night
brought down the tall sequoia,
and with it one hundred years,
the osprey’s nest, my childhood.

c. B. L. Bruce

First published in the anthology THREE, and winner of the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry

Enterprise

Visitant

Heavy blooms expose
their fleshy bodies
in such enterprise
among the dunes—
as mine to yours.

Such immeasurable delight:
the pale lips of the iris
curling to the listless sky.

In its assault on the shore,
the throbbing surf
folds again and again.

Somewhere through the mist
a gull is flying low,
calling out.

Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce (writing as B. L. Bruce) has been called the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Wayfarer Journal, Canary, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among many others. Most recently her work has appeared in the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, The Remnant Archive, Emerge Literary Journal, and Le Merle Poetry…

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New Poem “Mockingbird” by Poet B. L. Bruce Published in Visitant

MOCKINGBIRD

As it often does
moving by memory,
your body finds mine, fits
puzzled into angles and curves
in those hushed hours—
were it not for the mockingbird
screaming into the moonlit,
slate-grey sky.

I envy you,
your unbothered sleep.
No torment. No great,
stirring voice
in your mind
screaming,
screaming.

c. B. L. Bruce
First published by Visitant

Follow Bruce on Instagram @thepoesis and Twitter @the_poesis

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Poem “Dark Star” Published in Emerge Literary Journal’s Issue 16

DARK STAR

I had not expected, mid-life,
that already my shining years
would be behind me, traded
for more essential things:
what it means
to have patience,
to wage a war,
how to endure.

I remember clearer now:
the smooth dunes,
bare shoulders,
my body feeling somehow
less bound, belonging
to me. You came out
of the sea—salt on skin.
In a particular way,
your face opened
beneath the midday sky.
Those early days I miss
when the light in your eye
hadn’t dimmed—before
you closed to me, some magic
you never spoke of
dissipating.

Yet we are here, still,
silvering at our temples and
saturated with all
we’ve lived, dark star
on my horizon.

c. B. L. Bruce

Follow Bruce on Twitter (@the_poesis) and Instagram (@thepoesis)

Emerge Literary Journal is a journal of online poetry and prose dedicated to emerging writers and their words now in their ninth year of publication.

POETRY REVIEWERS WANTED for Forthcoming and Third Collection, “Measures,” by Award-Winning Poet B. L. Bruce

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In Measures, B. L. Bruce’s third collection of poetry, the author deftly explores grief, loss, the visual measures of time, and the nature of change in her celebrated, nuanced verse.

In this latest collection featuring nearly sixty new poems—including works in new formats like micropoetry and American haiku—award-winning poet B. L. Bruce again echoes the lyricism and rich imagery that readers have come to praise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B. L. BRUCE is a Pushcart Prize nominee and award-winning author from California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz, with work appearing in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including Common Ground Review, Monterey Poetry Review, The Remnant Archive, the Haiku Society of America’s Frogpond Journal, Emerge Literary Journal, and many others. Bruce is the recipient of the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize and the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry. Her debut collection, The Weight of Snow, was a 2014 International Book Awards Finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in the poetry category. Measures is her fourth book.

WHAT REVIEWERS HAVE SAID:

“As its poems tread through forests, over mountains, and along the water . . . Measures captivates.”   — Clarion Reviews

“[B. L. Bruce’s] newest poetry collection, Measures, by turns elicits tenderness and melancholy, hopefulness and heartbreak—which is to say, the gamut of the human condition. . . . Bruce’s collection offers many accomplished and memorable moments.”   — BlueInk Review

“Lyrical poems on the beauty of the natural world contrasted against the fragile, sometimes broken nature of the human experience.” — Andrea Janda, Visitant

If interested in reviewing, please send query to blackswiftpress (at) gmail (dot) com
A PDF copy will be provided in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Poems “The Leaving” and “Fragility,” First Published in The 2River View (Winter 2014)

Throwback to my two poems, “The Leaving” and “Fragility,” which appear in my award-winning collection The Weight of Snow, first published in The 2River View.

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THE LEAVING

By the heavy glass doors,
you kneel to gather scattered clothes,
your naked silhouette a shadow
against the violet dawn.
I know this shape your body makes
against the sky.

A leaf falls from the black oak tree.
I see a flash of rust-red–the robin’s breast
before the window. You brush the hair
from your forehead.
Somewhere along the avenue a machine
is breathing,
and I watch the steady rise and fall
of your bare chest.

I hold myself back, only to reason–
were I a dog curled at your feet,
would you have held me then?
Will you remember me
when you are gone, as I
remember spring
when the first snow falls?

At your passing of the bedside:
your dappled skin, the smell of sea salt.
I turn away from faint rustlings
in the small kitchen,
the quiet unlatch of the door.

FRAGILITY

From my mother
I learned how wine swims in the vein,
what happens when the vaquita dies,
how to boil meat from bone
to make chicken soup.
Like her, often I am stirred from sleep
by thought, not dream.

A frenzied rap at the thin door a beckon
to follow her into the summer garden,
listen to the birds—
nighthawk in the oak,
mockingbird in the underbrush.
We busy ourselves wondering what dark place
becomes the bed of the crow.

In these moments, we are suddenly aware
that our hearts are beating— there is
something larger than ourselves.

And knowing the fragility of it all
we speak the language of mortality.

c. B. L. Bruce

Excerpt from “At Henry Cowell State Park, Early Winter”

I drop a glove in the puddle of rainwater,
and bending to remove it
see the reflection of my mother’s figure,
see the levy of years–
the unexpected wither of skin
as if waking to see
that it has snowed
overnight.

c. B. L. Bruce

From “At Henry Cowell State Park, Early Winter” from my award-winning collection “The Weight of Snow,” first published in The Cossack Review

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THE WEIGHT OF SNOW

2014 International Book Awards Finalist
2014 San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention
2014 USA Best Book Awards “Poetry” Category Finalist

SEE THE COLLECTION >

Tweets by the_poesis

B. L. Bruce’s “28 Days of Solitude” Re-released

Life in isolation during the coronavirus pandemic got me thinking of the time I spent 28 days in a small cabin in the remote forests of Northern California. I wrote about my time there, reflecting on the writing process, in my short memoir “28 Days of Solitude.”

Check out the newly refreshed edition, available now on Amazon. 

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28 Days of Solitude

A Memoir

B. L. Bruce

Award-winning author of The Weight of Snow and The Starling’s Song

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON

“A wonderfully intimate view of one writer’s thoughts—a month-long collection of insights and asides about what it means to be an artist, to be a creator, to be sensitive to the world, and to have an insatiable desire to share these things through the written word.”

4.3 STAR RATING ON AMAZON

Written during her twenty-eight-day stay in a small cabin in the remote mountain forests of Northern California, author B. L. Bruce chronicles the daily life of a writer at work. In the wake of her award-winning poetry collection, The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude moves the focus away from the creative work and toward the often-overlooked creator.

Offering insights into her personal thoughts of the craft and its importance in her life before and during her residency, Bruce’s memoir aims to give readers a glimpse into the psyche of a writer.

For more information, visit http://www.blackswiftpress.com/28-days-of-solitude

Two Photographs Featured in Issue Two, “In Between,” of Near Window Zine

Near Window is a zine exhibiting a view from behind the nearest window out onto the world beyond; or, a view inwards from the outside.

I’m excited to have two of my photographs, “Blurred Row of Trees” and “White Duck” published in their latest issue.

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Poem “North” in Visitant

NORTH

For a moment in the calm,
between gusts of wind:
the faint push of air beneath wing.
The northern harrier drifts above
a flowering field of yellow mustard.

Bobbing among the eddies,
the murre learn centuries
of the waterwork and currents,
driven unthinking by what
we cannot know.

Farther still, the north horizon
is choked with fog;
the clover lies trampled by salt wind
along the clifftop.

I turn my face into the sun.
Were it not for some small
burning ember,
I’d have lifted my arms
and fallen into the sea.

c. B. L. Bruce
First published by Visitant, November 17, 2020

Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce (writing as B. L. Bruce) has been called the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Wayfarer Journal, Canary, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among many others. Most recently her work has appeared in the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, The Remnant Archive, Emerge Literary Journal, and Le Merle Poetry Journal. Bruce is the recipient of the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize and the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, as well as the author of three books: The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude, and The Starling’s Song. Her third and fourth collections of poetry are forthcoming. Her highly praised debut collection, The Weight of Snow, was the 2014 International Book Awards poetry category finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards poetry category finalist. The Starling’s Song was released in February of 2016, and was selected as Honorable Mention in the Pacific Rim Book Festival. In addition to her writing pursuits, Bruce is the Editor-in-Chief of the nature-centric literary magazine Humana Obscura, and is a painter and photographer, with work that has been featured in The Sun Magazine, Near Window, and others.

Follow B. L. Bruce on Twitter @the_poesis and on Instagram @thepoesis.