Two Poems by Author B. L. Bruce in the Autumn 2020 Issue of The Remnant Archive

WHEN I DIE

When I die, burn my body.
I hope to leave with you—
among other things—
a sort of fury, enough for you
to imagine me beating the ground
with my fists, igniting. 

MIRACLE

Tell me what brings you
to your knees, what becomes of us.
Your fears.

I can tell you in my own words
what we are: we are many things—
small humors, superstitions.

It must also be said
there can be beauty in anguish—
in yours and in mine.

Each of us our own poetry,
a language of wounds, and of dawn,
and the color blue.

And aren’t we, after all,
the miracle of a long-ago mess
as though by accident?

What more need we be? 

c. B. L. Bruce

First published in The Remnant Archive, Autumn 2020 Issue

The Remnant Archive is an online journal comprising features on literature, art and history.

New Poem from Black Swift Press Author B. L. Bruce, "Yellow," in Honor of #NationalPoetryDay

YELLOW
 

What I can’t forget is the sound
of that yellow warbler. Up and up
we climbed Wasatch Mountain,
poolings of snow lingering
in the shadowed valleys.
In the quiet along the riverbank
we did not speak.

Cupping our hands,
drinking the sweet alpine snowmelt,
the wind slipped through poplars,
and that warbler song echoed in the canyon.

Years later, I still hear it, that colorful sound,
and think of that day upstream,
those chalk-white poplars,
high mountain wind.

c. 2017, B. L. Bruce

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

2014 International Book Awards Finalist in the Poetry Category
2014 San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention Recipient in the Poetry Category
2014 USA Best Books Awards Finalist in "Poetry" Category
2017 Pacific Rim Book Festival Award Honorable Mention (Poetry Category)

Excerpt from 2017 Pacific Rim Book Awards Honorable Mention in Poetry: "The Starling's Song"

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 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.

• • • • •

MAGPIE

Once I begged to forget you.
Yet there you were,
beneath the old cypress
and then in the rain,
the sound of surfbeat echoing
against the small white house.

Often I’d dream of what it might be like
to love you, the art of it,
being recreated again and again.
Always, the dreams followed me
through the morning like a ghost.
I’d begin wanting you to love me:
the moth destroyed in pursuit,
all delicateness destroyed by flame.

And in the hours I am most lonely,
still I think of you. All those
long suffered months
learning to forgive myself,
your uncertainty, your judgment,
feeling foolishly weak-willed
and driven mad as a magpie
into those desperate breaths
before dawn.

c. B. L. Bruce

‘THE STARLING’S SONG’ WINS HONORABLE MENTION IN THE 2017 PACIFIC RIM BOOK FESTIVAL

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 International Book Awards and Finalist in the USA Book Awards in the poetry category for her debut collection of poetry titled The Weight of Snow, which recently was re-released as a second edition under Black Swift Press (June, 2017).

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.

Her newest collection of poetry is set to be released late summer of 2017.

“THE HEIRESS OF MARY OLIVER” RETURNS WITH SECOND EDITION OF AWARD-WINNING COLLECTION THE WEIGHT OF SNOW

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, June 1st, 2017—Author Bri Bruce (writing under the 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 polished version of The Weight of Snow, 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 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.

Santa Cruz County’s first Poet Laureate Gary Young says of Bruce’s book, “The poems in The Weight of Snow are heartfelt, skillfully written, and keenly observed fragments of the natural world and our lives there. Bravo.” Deemed the heiress of Mary Oliver by many, of Bruce’s work Karen Lewis, author and Executive Director of the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference, says, “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.” 

Since the release of the first edition, Bruce has received a number of accolades, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. The first edition of The Weight of Snow was the 2014 International Book Awards and 2014 USA Best Book Awards finalist in the poetry category. Bruce received the 2014 PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry for her haiku series published in THREE alongside then Poet Laureate Erica Goss.

A graduate of UC Santa Cruz’s literature department with a concentration in poetry, Bruce has authored two additional works under Black Swift Press’s imprint: a collection of memoirical prose written entirely during a twenty-eight-day stay in the remote forests of Northern California titled 28 Days of Solitude and a chapbook of poetry, The Starling’s Song.

Bruce is currently working on her third collection of poetry, set to be released later this year, and her coming-of-age novel ten years in the making.

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Bri Bruce, Bri Bruce Productions
Email: bribruceproductions@gmail.com
www.bribruceproductions.net

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Bri Bruce, Bri Bruce Productions
Ph: (831)331-0245
Email: bribruceproductions@gmail.com
http://www.bribruceproductions.net

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 

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 several 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