Tag Archives: Blue Heron Speaks

The Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet for January 2016 is Wallace Stevens

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Welcome to the Blue Heron Speaks feature for January 2016! Take a brief break from writing up your New Year’s resolution list (or procrastinating creating a list), to breathe deeply, and read a few poems by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). About twice a year, I like to offer samplings of work from past voices, whose writing still casts light in our world from the next realm. It gives me a little more time to line up the next 3 months of featured, contemporary poets, but it also allows for a time of reflection. Winter, for many of us, is a time of solitude, when the cold chill brings us inside the hearth a bit more. It is also a time to appreciate voices from the past, who may have some wisdom to share. I will let the poems of Wallace Stevens speak for themselves. Whether you remember studying Stevens previously, or if this is your initial foray into his verse, I invite you to stop, rest, and stay awhile. Perhaps, read a past issue of Blue Heron Review, while you’re here, too. Enjoy!

Visit the Blue Heron Speaks Featured Author page to read 3 poems by Wallace Stevens.

Happy New Year from Blue Heron Review!

Your presence makes a difference. What will you do with the beauty of words this year? Your participation in life is required.

Peace,
Cristina M. R. Norcross, Founding Editor
Blue Heron Review

The Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet for December 2015 is Susan Rich

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Susan Rich

Welcome to the December 2015 Blue Heron Speaks feature! Our guest author this month is the beautiful, soulful poet, Susan Rich. Her latest poetry collection is Cloud Pharmacy (White Pine Press, 2014). Susan Rich’s poems evoke a musical melding of the unknowable and the rich, textured details of the tangible world. You can just touch the red velvet stars in her lyrical lines. You can taste the Boston egg creams. In these beautifully crafted poems, Rich reminds us that we are holy beings, that our lives are sacred and mystical.

Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks Featured Author page to read three poems from Cloud Pharmacy.

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(photo credit Kelli Russell Agodon)

Susan Rich is the author of four collections of poetry including Cloud Pharmacy, and The Alchemist’s Kitchen, which was a Finalist for the Foreword Prize and the Washington State Book Award. Her poems have been published by many journals including in the Antioch Review, Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Ireland, The Southern Review, and World Literature Today. Susan’s other books include Cures Include Travel (2006) and The Cartographer’s Tongue (2000) winner of the PEN USA Award and the Peace Corps Writers Award. She is a recipient of awards from Artists Trust, 4 Culture, The Times Literary Review Award, Seattle Mayor’s Award of Cultural Affairs and the Fulbright Foundation. She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle, WA. Find out more about this author at her website: http://poet.susanrich.net/

Cloud Pharmacy (White Pine Press, 2014)

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The November 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet is Ronda Broatch!

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Ronda Broatch

Welcome to the November 2015 Blue Heron Speaks feature! Our talented guest author this month is poet, editor, and photographer, Ronda Broatch, whose latest poetry collection is Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015). The senses hum and glow with Broatch’s words. Her imagery brings us into the world of each poem so fully, that we feel the rush of river water on legs – we experience the dusting of sand on skin. This vibrant collection will awaken a longing for connection to earth and sky, for the need to understand the stars. Beautiful, rich, and evocative! You will want a copy of this collection to read and re-read.

Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks Featured Author page to read two sample poems from Ronda Broatch’s latest book.

(photo credit Ronda Broatch)

(photo credit Ronda Broatch)

Ronda Broatch is the author of Lake of Fallen Constellations, (MoonPath Press, 2015), Shedding Our Skins, (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and Some Other Eden, (2005). Her journal publications include Prairie Schooner, Fourteen Hills, Mid-American Review, and Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry (Two Sylvias Press). Ronda co-edits the literary journal, Crab Creek Review. Poet and photographer, she is attracted to words and textures like a moth to a bare bulb on a twilit porch.  Find out more about this author at:  http://www.rondabroatch.com/

Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015)

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Stephen Anderson is the September 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet!

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Stephen Anderson

Welcome to the September 2015 Blue Heron Speaks feature! This month, we are very pleased to share the work of poet, Stephen Anderson. Please visit our Blue Heron Speaks page to read 3 sample poems from his new poetry collection, Navigating in the Sun (Finishing Line Press, 2015). While reading Stephen Anderson’s poems, we closely hold the miracle of each memory he shares with us, as if they are our own. Anderson has that rare gift as a poet of showing us the magic of small moments through beautiful imagery and thoughtful details. We, too, are on that swing as a child. We, too, are listening to the cicada serenade. We, too, are contemplating the fate of a colony of yellow jackets. I hope you will linger long and often, while reading these poems, as we welcome the new life that awaits us behind the russet and gold of September.

(Photo credit: Shlomo Godder)

(Photo credit: Shlomo Godder)

Stephen Anderson is a prize-winning Milwaukee poet whose work has appeared in numerous print and online journals including Southwest Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, New Purlieu Re-view, Free Verse, Verse Wisconsin and Foundling Review. Many of Anderson’s poems have been featured on the Milwaukee NPR-affiliate WUWM Lake Effect Program. He is the author of Montezuma Resurrected And Other Poems (2001) and The Silent Tango of Dreams (2006 chapbook).  Several of his poems appeared in the poetry collection, Portals And Piers (2012). In the summer of 2013, six of his poems formed the text for a chamber music composition entitled, The Privileged Secrets of the Arch, performed by some musicians, including two members of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and an opera singer. Because of a particular set of life experiences, Anderson considers himself a poet with a global perspective rather than a regional poet. His newest poetry collection, Navigating in the Sun, was recently published by Finishing Line Press (2015). Copies can be ordered directly from the poet ($14.49 plus shipping of $2.50).  Contact author for details at: stephen.anderson724@gmail.com

Navigating in the Sun (Finishing Line Press, 2015)

Stephen A book cover

Happy National Poetry Month! Carl Sandburg is the April 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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CARL SANDBURG

Welcome to the April Blue Heron Speaks feature! In honor of National Poetry Month this year, we are choosing another voice from the past to celebrate. Visit the Blue Heron Speaks page on our site to read and enjoy three poems by Carl Sandburg: “Fog,” “At a Window,” and “Handfuls.”

(Photo credit: Elizabeth Buehrmann)

(Photo credit: Elizabeth Buehrmann)

About Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

“… Sandburg was recognized as a member of the Chicago literary renaissance, which included Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters. He established his reputation with Chicago Poems (1916), and then Cornhuskers (1918), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1919. Soon after the publication of these volumes Sandburg wrote Smoke and Steel (1920), his first prolonged attempt to find beauty in modern industrialism. With these three volumes, Sandburg became known for his free verse poems that portrayed industrial America.

In the twenties, he started some of his most ambitious projects, including his study of Abraham Lincoln. From childhood, Sandburg loved and admired the legacy of President Lincoln. For thirty years he sought out and collected material, and gradually began the writing of the six-volume definitive biography of the former president. The twenties also saw Sandburg’s collections of American folklore, the ballads in The American Songbag and The New American Songbag (1950), and books for children. These later volumes contained pieces collected from brief tours across America which Sandburg took each year, playing his banjo or guitar, singing folk-songs, and reciting poems.

In the 1930s, Sandburg continued his celebration of America with Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow (1932), The People, Yes (1936), and the second part of his Lincoln biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for his Complete Poems in 1950. His final volumes of verse were Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960) and Honey and Salt (1963). Carl Sandburg died on July 22, 1967.” (*Biography credit: excerpted from Poets.org)

Carl Sandburg: Collected Poems

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M J Iuppa is the March 2015 Blue Heron Speaks Featured Poet

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M J IUPPA

Welcome to the March feature for Blue Heron Speaks! Our guest author this month is poet, M J Iuppa, whose work appears in the latest issue of Blue Heron Review.

For the reader, the senses come alive in Iuppa’s poems. Her writing is atmospheric, with great attention to detail. Iuppa’s obvious love of words results in her beautiful use of language in every poem.

Please visit the Blue Heron Speaks page of our site to read three of M J Iuppa’s poems and to learn more about where to find her latest collections.

MJ IUPPA Large Author photo
About M J Iuppa
M J Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Between Worlds is her most recent chapbook, featuring lyric essays, flash fiction and prose poems (Foothills Publishing, 2013). Recent poems, flash fictions, and essays in When Women Waken, Poppy Road Review, Wild: A Quarterly, Eunoia Review, Andrea Reads America, Canto, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Poetry Storehouse, Avocet, Right Hand Pointing, Tiny-lights, The Lake (U.K.), Blue Heron, 100 Word Story, The Kentucky Review, and more. She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. You can follow her musings on writing and creative sustainability on Red Rooster Farm on mjiuppa.blogspot.com.

Between Worlds, prose chapbook (Foothills Publishing, 2013)
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Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010)
Within Reach cover

Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003)
Night Traveler Cover

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

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)

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

A Girl Goes into the Woods book cover

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)