It’s not every day you’re flipping through the local newspaper and come across a feature on yourself! I was happy to find that a poem of mine was published in this month’s issue of Los Gatos This Week. I was less happy to have my face plastered onto the page as well, but, hey.

They’ve published a poem titled “Eggs for Dumplings” from my debut poetry collection, The Weight of Snow (Black Swift Press, 2014). The full collection is available in both print and e-format from Amazon and all other major eBook retailers.

EGGS FOR DUMPLINGS

In the dark kitchen, you crack
eggs for dumplings, drunk with
the ebbing heat of summer
and berry wine. As I look on,
I can see you there in dim light
falling to pieces.

We walk into the garden,
watch throngs of honeybees
nose up to the lavender and sip.
The dog’s body now buried
in the hot earth, the sorrows
of your heart knowing the sighs
of the doves. In the trees, the jays
greet the dusk, blue as bruises.

We stand barefoot
beside the crooked oak
and throw pebbles into the twilight sky.
Heads thrown back, we watch bats
dive in their silent pursuit, unknowing.

– Excerpt from The Weight of Snow (Black Swift Press, 2014) by B. L. Bruce

PAPERBACK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON $8.99

eBOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, GOOGLE PLAY, iTUNES, BARNES & NOBLE, OMNILIT, AND KOBO $2.99

www.bribruceproductions.squarespace.com

2014 International Book Awards Finalist in the Poetry Category
2014 San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention, Poetry Category
2014 USA Best Book Awards “Poetry” Category Finalist
Featured on the USA Book News’s 2014 USA Best Book Awards Website 

PAPERBACK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON  $8.99

eBOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, GOOGLE PLAY, iTUNES, BARNES & NOBLE, OMNILIT, AND KOBO  $2.99

*      *     *     *     *

Praise for The Weight of Snow

“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 Pleasure, No Other Life, and Braver Deeds

“[Bruce] is the worthy heiress of Mary Oliver.” – John Gilchrist

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. . . . 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 at Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

READ MORE REVIEWS HERE

*      *     *     *     *

In The Weight of Snow, 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.

For those of you interested, I’ve been interviewed by author Nadette Rodgers. You can see her questions, and my responses, as part of her #WritingWednesday series at nadetteraerodgers.wordpress.com!

2014 International Book Awards Finalist in the Poetry Category
2014 San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention, Poetry Category
2014 USA Best Book Awards “Poetry” Category Finalist
Featured on the USA Book News’s 2014 USA Best Book Awards Website 

PAPERBACK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON  $8.99

eBOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, GOOGLE PLAY, iTUNES, BARNES & NOBLE, OMNILIT, AND KOBO  $2.99

*      *     *     *     *

Praise for The Weight of Snow

“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 Pleasure, No Other Life, and Braver Deeds

“[Bruce] is the worthy heiress of Mary Oliver.” – John Gilchrist

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. . . . 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 at Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

READ MORE REVIEWS HERE

*      *     *     *     *

In The Weight of Snow, 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.

* * *

Below is an excerpt from my latest publication in Damselfly Press‘s issue 30–my poem titled “Pulse” that is set to appear in my next collection, The Starling’s Song (2015)

PULSE

Listen to the Poem

Eating blue mussels
from the perfect domes
of their shells, you twist
a slice of orange into
the foam of your beer.
We argue over the height
of the bridge above the
Noyo River. The water
is like concrete, you say.
I believe someone would
survive. As if I had yielded,
I sat silently regarding
a woman’s leap from
the Golden Gate, the
monstrous voice that
told her to jump. From
across the table, you
place your hand on mine.
I feel the wild coursing
of your pulse, the proof
of our lives in our hands.

* * *

Bri Bruce is an editor, graphic designer, and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. With a bachelor’s degree in writing from UC Santa Cruz, her work has previously appeared in The Sun Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among others. Bruce is the award-winning author of The Weight of Snow.

2014 International Book Awards Finalist in the Poetry Category
2014 San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention, Poetry Category
2014 USA Best Book Awards “Poetry” Category Finalist
Featured on the USA Book News’s 2014 USA Best Book Awards Website 

PAPERBACK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON  $8.99

eBOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, GOOGLE PLAY, iTUNES, BARNES & NOBLE, OMNILIT, AND KOBO  $2.99

*      *     *     *     *

Praise for The Weight of Snow

“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 Pleasure, No Other Life, and Braver Deeds

“[Bruce] is the worthy heiress of Mary Oliver.”

– John Gilchrist

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. . . . 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 at Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference

READ MORE REVIEWS HERE

*      *     *     *     *

In The Weight of Snow, 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.

Below is an excerpt from my latest publication in Damselfly Press‘s issue 30

My poem titled “Forbearance” is set to appear in my next collection, The Starling’s Song (Black Swift Press, 2015)

FORBEARANCE

When the morning is darkest
we are roused by the birds
in the plum tree. I pull him
from the bed, beg him accompany
me to watch the egrets wake
in the cypress from the mist-veiled
cliff. I want to teach him forbearance,
point to the flowers that have appeared
along the path to the cove—
new irises have broken through
the soil, having burst from winter
hiding. I picture him leaning over
a shallow pool at ebb tide to touch
a slimed blade of kelp, his earlier
stubbornness dispelled. I imagine
I would not feel victory. I’d have
been impassioned by the way he
delicately gathered a fingerling
in his palm to show me forgiveness.
He sees things for what they are,
and nothing more. I’d have given
my hands that he might recognize
humility standing beside the sea,
the enormity of it before him.

* * *

BRI BRUCE is an editor, graphic designer, and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. With a bachelor’s degree in writing from UC Santa Cruz, her work has previously appeared in The Sun Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among others. Bruce is the award-winning author of The Weight of Snow. 

FREE advanced copy of Richard Rensberry’s The Wolf Pack Moon: Poems (Quick Turtle Books, 2015) in exchange for an honest review!

The lion’s share of the poems contained in this book was written under the influence of the wolf pack moon during the months of January and February of 2015. This is the name of the winter moon as given by the Algonquin Indians that hunted and gathered the Great Lakes State of Michigan where the author spent his youth. The hard northern winters are a battle between optimism and pessimism and these poems are a reflection of that struggle. These are verses of the lands within and the lands without as written beneath the glow of the wolf pack moon.

RICHARD RENSBERRY grew up on a small farm in Northern Michigan accumulating spiritual riches only the heart of nature can distill. These riches weave themselves in and out of his poetry like the rhyme and rhythm of his words. He has the blood of a wolf and the heart of a gypsy. He is married to fellow author and muse, Mary Rensberry. They are the co-authors of the book It’s Black and White/A Turtle Quest for the Ages. Together, they founded QuickTurtle Books® in 2013.

To learn more, visit www.richardrensberry.com

IF INTERESTED IN REVIEWING, PLEASE SEND QUERY TO
bribruceproductions (at) gmail (dot) com

* * *

ISBN (trade paperback): 978-0-9914503-4-3
ISBN (eBook): 978-0-9914503-3-6
Publication date: August 1, 2015
104 pages
Black Swift Press

B.L.BRUCE is a writer, graphic designer, and publisher from Santa Cruz, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Northwind Magazine, Soundings Review, and the Monterey Poetry Review. She was nominated for the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize in 2009 as a student of Santa Cruz’s first poet laureate, Gary Young, and in 2014 she was the recipient of the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry in the wake of her award-winning book, The Weight of Snow. 28 Days of Solitude is Bruce’s second book.

For review inquiries, please email blackswiftpress (at) gmail (dot) com.

Download the tip sheet here. 

NOW AVAILABLE AT: 

• AMAZON (PRINT & KINDLE)
• CREATE SPACE
• BARNES & NOBLE
• iTUNES
• KOBO
• GOOGLE PLAY

I’m elated to say that I recently signed a book deal for my debut poetry collection, “The Weight of Snow” with Smooth Stones Press! 

It will be available September 1st in hardback, then on October 1st for paperback and eBook.

In 2014, “The Weight of Snow” won finalist in the poetry category of both the International Book Awards and the USA Best Books Awards. It was also a finalist in the poetry category in the San Francisco Book Festival. A large number of poems were published in dozens of literary journals and magazines, including The Wayfarer (where I was named featured poet), The Monterey Poetry Review, Avocet, and more.

______________________________________________________

“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

______________________________________________________

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,
we 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.

______________________________________________________

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.

• • • • •

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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SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, June 1st, 2017—Author Bri Bruce (writing under the pen name B. L. Bruce) of Santa Cruz will release a second edition of her debut collection of poems The Weight of Snow: New & Selected Poems on June 1, 2017 as the fifth work of Black Swift Press’s assemblage.In the newly edited and [...]

HOLLYWOOD, CA - July 24th, 2017 - Award-winning poet B. L. Bruce's third book, The Starling's Song, has received Honorable Mention in the poetry category of the 2017 Pacific Rim Book Festival, honoring the best books of the spring. This award will be added among others the author has received, including Finalist in the 2014 [...]

2017 PACIFIC RIM BOOK FESTIVAL AWARD RECIPIENT (POETRY CATEGORY) - HONORABLE MENTION 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 [...]

TEMPEST Through the night the trees rocked to and from, boughs bucked and pitched against one another and I remember thinking it sounded like weeping. At first light I left the hilltop for the shadows of the canyon. The river was frenzied, filled with leaves and waves and mud. I stood for a time at [...]

Poems "Feel" and "Tempest" accepted in the forthcoming anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California from Scarlet Tanager Books. The collective contributions to this anthology come together to weave a braid of voices examining and celebrating the dazzling variety of California’s unique biological zones. This anthology will provide an arguably much-needed platform for the ecologies [...]

THE WEIGHT OF SNOW: NEW & SELECTED POEMS 2014 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALIST (POETRY CATEGORY) 2014 USA BEST BOOK AWARDS FINALIST (POETRY CATEGORY) 2014 SAN FRANCISCO BOOK FESTIVAL HONORABLE MENTION 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, [...]