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The Winter 2015 Issue of Blue Heron Review is Now Available to Read Online!

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(cover art by Jason Iffert)

(cover art by Jason Iffert)

CONTRIBUTORS
Poets:
M J Iuppa * Simon Perchik * Arya F Jenkins * Gonzalinho da Costa * Sandra Lindow * Trina Gaynon * Ann Wehrman * Laura Bayless * Bruce Dethlefsen * Ronda Broatch * Pat Wadsworth * Marzelle Robertson * Allison Grayhurst * Joan McNerney * Mary C Rowin * Philip Dacey * Ronnie Hess * Lauren K Carlson * Andrew Albritton * Sarah Rehfeldt * Wendy Thornton * Kiarra Lynn Smith * Chad Hanson * Robert Nordstrom * Tim Gavin * Chris Abbate * Russell Colver * Steven Bucher * Laura Rebecca Payne * Richard Havenga * Sarah Brown Weitzman * John Grey * Yvette A Schnoeker-Shorb * Tim Suermondt * Jeff Burt * Daniel James Sundahl * Sheelonee Banerjee *

Artists:
Jason Iffert * Sarah Rehfeldt * Jeannie E Roberts * Richard Havenga * Sharon Auberle * Annette L Grunseth * David Seth Smith * Daniel Adams

Please visit the Blue Heron Review Issue 3 Winter/2015 page of this site, to enjoy a selection of poetic offerings and visual art by our contributors.

Winter is often a time of reflection, stillness, and deep silence, as we travel inward and wear the cloak of this quiet season. After reading and re-reading this issue, I notice that there are recurring themes of grief, remembrance, and longing. I hope you will take the time to savor these poems and images. Since we only have 2 issues per year, each collection is full, colorful, and has many voices. Each poem deserves its own spotlight. Memory finds us in the heart of winter and begs us to listen.  Take time out of your day to rest, pull up a chair, and read these beautiful, poignant poems.

With blessings of peace this winter,
Cristina M. R. Norcross
Editor, Blue Heron Review

Simon Perchik is the February 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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Simon Perchik

Welcome to the February Blue Heron Speaks feature! Blue Heron Review is honored to shine a spotlight on the work of author, Simon Perchik, this month. There are some poets who transport you to other times or geographies. There are still other writers who have a rare gift, beckoning the reader to travel within the life of emotion itself. Simon Perchik has this gift. With tender lines and graceful imagery, Perchik invites us to enter a vulnerable world of loss and grief, presented with such beauty, that you cannot help but feel the closeness and warmth of each moment in his poems. Through reading Simon Perchik’s work, we connect to a deep reverence and appreciation for life. Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks page to read three poems from Simon Perchik’s beautiful collection, Almost Rain (River Otter Press, 2013).

Simon Perchik author photo

About Simon Perchik
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Osiris, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Almost Rain by Simon Perchik (River Otter Press, 2013)

Simon Perchik Almost Rain book cover

Gail Goepfert is the January 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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Gail Goepfert

Happy New Year and welcome to the January Blue Heron Speaks feature! Blue Heron is delighted to share the beautiful, transformative work of poet, Gail Goepfert. Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks page of our site, to read three of her poems. Her chapbook, A Mind on Pain, will be published by Finishing Line Press in early 2015. We are fortunate enough to have a sneak peek at her poem, “Broken,” from this brave collection on the Blue Heron Speaks page.  A Mind on Pain is available to pre-order at Finishing Line Press.

Gail G author photo
About Gail Goepfert
Gail Goepfert is a poet, amateur photographer, and teacher.  After many years in the classroom with seventh graders, she pursues her passion for the arts and nature. She is an associate editor for RHINO Poetry, teaches developmental online English classes, and walks the natural world with a camera as often as possible.

A Mind on Pain is her first chapbook. She is published in a number of anthologies and journals including Avocet, Off Channel, After Hours, Caesura, Florida English, Examined Life Journal, Homeopathy Today, and Room Magazine. Online her poems appear at Blue Heron Review, Jet Fuel Review, Ardor Literary Magazine and Bolts of Silk. A Pushcart Prize nomination for a Pushcart Prize in 2013 and in 2014 by Blue Heron Review, and she’s a recent runner-up in the Blue Lyra Review contest. She loves the cross-over of the arts. A former student set one of her poems to music. Her photographs appeared in Olentangy and 3Elements Reviews.

Gail Goepfert was born and raised in the Midwest states of Illinois and Ohio, from near the Piasa Bird along the bluffs of the Mississippi to the eagle-watch waters of the river near the Quad-Cities, from the Glass City, Toledo, Ohio, to a long and present stay in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. You can find her online at www.gailgoepfert.com.

A Mind on Pain by Gail Goepfert (Finishing Line Press, 2015)

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Blue Heron Review’s 2014 Pushcart Prize Nominations

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Blue Heron Review is delighted to announce our 2014 Pushcart Prize nominations!

(1) “Vitreous” by Gail Goepfert (Published in the summer/July 2014 issue)

(2) “Last Night the Owls” by Russell Colver (Published in the summer/July 2014 issue)

(3) “The Opal Water” by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen (Published in the summer/2014 issue)

(4) “Three Days” by Su Zi (Published in the summer/July 2014 issue)

(5) “Developing a Natural Grace” by Paula Schulz (Published in the winter/ February 2014 issue)

(6) “Accident” by Kristina Moriconi (Published on the Blue Heron Speaks Feature page, January, 2014)

Congratulations to all of our Blue Heron poets!

Louise Bogan is the December 2014 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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LOUISE BOGAN

 

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(photo credit by Poetry Foundation.org)

Welcome to the December 2014 spotlight feature for Blue Heron Review! This month we look back on a special, poetic voice from the past. I hope you enjoy the selection of four poems, by Louise Bogan, shared on the Blue Heron Speaks page of this site.

“Louise Bogan was born in Livermore Falls, Maine, on August 11, 1897. She attended Boston Girls’ Latin School and spent one year at Boston University. She married in 1916 and was widowed in 1920. In 1925, she married her second husband, the poet Raymond Holden, whom she divorced in 1937.

Bogan’s ability is unique in its strict adherence to lyrical forms, while maintaining a high emotional pitch: she was preoccupied with exploring the perpetual disparity of heart and mind.

Her poems were published in the New Republic, the Nation, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Scribner’s and Atlantic Monthly. For thirty-eight years, she reviewed poetry for The New Yorker.

The majority of her poetry was written in the earlier half of her life when she published Body of This Death (McBride & Company, 1923), Dark Summer (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929), and The Sleeping Fury (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937). She subsequently published volumes of her collected verse, and The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968), an overview of her life’s work in poetry. She died in New York City on February 4, 1970.” (Excerpt from Poets.org)

*To learn more about Louise Bogan, visit the Poetry Foundation website.

(The Blue Estuaries by Louise Bogan)

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Lyn Lifshin is the November 2014 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin author photo First Choice

Welcome to our November Blue Heron Speaks feature. Blue Heron Review is very pleased to share the talents of the prolific writer, Lyn Lifshin. Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks page of our website to read three of Lyn Lifshin’s poems:

AS THE DAYS GET LONGER
WHEN A LEGGY FOAL COMES INTO THE WORLD
BUT INSTEAD HAS GONE INTO WOODS

About Lyn Lifshin
Lyn Lifshin has published over 130 books and chapbooks including 3 from Black Sparrow Press: Cold Comfort, Before It’s Light and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me. Before Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle, Lifshin published her prize-winning book about the short-lived, beautiful racehorse, Ruffian, The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian and Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness. Recent books include: Ballroom; All the Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead; All True, Especially The Lies; Light At the End: The Jesus Poems; Katrina; Mirrors; Persephone; Lost In The Fog; Knife Edge & Absinthe: The Tango Poems. NYQ books published, A Girl Goes into The Woods. Also just out: For the Roses, poems after Joni Mitchell and Hitchcock Hotel from Danse Macabre. Tangled as the Alphabet—The Istanbul Poems was published by NightBallet Press. Just released as well, Malala. The Marilyn Poems was just released from Rubber Boots Press. An update to her Gale Research Autobiography is out: Lips, Blues, Blue Lace: On The Outside. Also just out is a DVD of the documentary film about her: Lyn Lifshin: Not Made Of Glass. Lyn Lifshin is also the author of the Red Mare Press chapbook, Chiffon (Red Mare #3, 2010). Forthcoming books include: Luminous Women: Eneduanna, Schererzade and Nefertiti; Femina Eterna; and Moving Through Stained Glass: the Maple Poems. Learn more about this author: http://www.lynlifshin.com/

(Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle / Texas Review Press, 2014)

secretariat-cover

(A Girl Goes into the Woods: Selected Poems / NYQ Books, 2013)

A Girl Goes into the Woods book cover

Submissions Update: Editor’s Note

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UPDATE: IMPORTANT SUBMISSION INFORMATION REGARDING CURRENT POETRY SUBMISSIONS AND THE ANNIVERSARY PHOTO CONTEST.

Beautiful offerings have been finding their way to the Blue Heron Review inbox. Thank you! Just wanted to let writers and photographers know not to be discouraged, if you don’t hear from us right away. Our response time is listed on the Submission Guidelines page as 8-10 weeks. I will not be responding to photo contest submissions, until after the November 15th deadline, in order to be fair. There are only 2 blue heron photo spots available for the contest.

For our 3rd issue, we have been flooded with poetry submissions. I am thrilled that Blue Heron has become so popular! Thank you for your patience. Each submission will be read with great care.

Thank you again for supporting Blue Heron Review!

As a reminder, the deadline for poetry submissions is: December 15th, 2014.

With kind wishes always ~ and in appreciation of your creative talents,
Cristina M. R. Norcross, Editor
Blue Heron Review

Kelli Russell Agodon is the October 2014 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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Kelli Russell Agodon

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Blue Heron Review is honored to shine a spotlight on the artistry and energy of poet, Kelli Russell Agodon, for the month of October.  Kelli’s latest poetry collection, Hourglass Museum, is published by White Pine Press, 2014.  Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks page, to read two of her poems from this book.  Agodon is a talented wordsmith who knows how to create vivid worlds through imagery, lyricism and beautiful language.  I know that our Blue Heron readers will thoroughly enjoy this month’s selections!


About Kelli Russell Agodon

Kelli Russell Agodon is a poet, writer, and editor from the Northwest. She’s the author of Hourglass Museum (White Pine Press, 2014) and The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice, which she co-authored with Martha Silano. 

Her other books include Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (Winner of ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year in Poetry and Finalist for the Washington State Book Prize), Small Knots, Geography, and Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. She has won various awards in writing and editing from Artist Trust, The Puffin Foundation, North American Review and her work has been published in journals such as The Atlantic, Prairie Schooner, and the New England Review. 

Kelli is the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press and was the editor of Seattle’s Crab Creek Review for the last six years. She lives in a small seaside town where when not writing, she does graphic design and photography. She is also an avid paddleboarder and mountain biker who has a fondness for old dogs, bonfires, desserts, and fedoras. Visit her at: www.agodon.com or learn more about Two Sylvias Press at: www.twosylviaspress.com

Twitter: @kelliagodon
Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodon

Hourglass Front Cover

(Hourglass Musem, White Pine Press, 2014)

Blue Heron Review Announces Our Best of the Net Nominations!

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Best of the Net nominations for poems appearing online between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014

Congratulations to all of our Blue Heron Review, BEST OF THE NET, nominated authors:

1. “Kitchen Poem” by Paulette Beete (published on the Blue Heron Speaks page / December/2013)

2. “More Than Once” by Kristina Moriconi (published on the Blue Heron Speaks page / January, 2014)

3. “And These Thy Gifts” by Sharon Auberle (published in the Winter 2014 Issue #1 / February 2014)

4. “Expendables” by Ruth Bavetta (published on the Blue Heron Speaks page / June, 2014)

Blue Heron Review One Year Anniversary Photo Contest

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(photo by Jason Iffert)

In honor of Blue Heron Review’s 1 year anniversary, we are having a photography contest for the Winter/2015 online issue! The best 2 photos of a Great Blue Heron will be chosen, to be published in our 3rd issue at the end of February 2015.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: November 15, 2014

GUIDELINES:
Please send up to THREE, high-resolution photo files in either jpg or png format. File size should be as large as possible. Color, black and white, and digital art photos are all acceptable. If we have a large number of high quality, fine art photos, some images may be saved for publication in a future issue of Blue Heron Review. Please send a 100-150 word bio/artist statement, with any links to your blog/website, in the body of the e-mail. (At this point, we are unable to pay our contributors, but Blue Heron is very proactive in terms of promoting the work of our writers and artists via social media. We reserve first publication rights. All rights return to the author/artist after publication. All photographs include a photo credit line, as well as a longer bio with links at the end of the magazine issue.)

Response Time: Blue Heron endeavors to respond in a timely fashion. Due to the increase in submissions for our 3rd issue, a considered response can take between 8-10 weeks. Please do not write to ask about the status of your submission unless you have not heard from us within 10 weeks.

Please use the title “Photography Contest/Your Last Name” in the subject line of your e-mail. Send all photo contest submissions by November 15, 2014 to:

blueheronsubmissions@gmail.com

I look forward to seeing a beautiful array of blue herons winging their way to our in-box!

Cristina M. R. Norcross
Editor, Blue Heron Review