In Measures, B. L. Bruce’s third collection of poetry, the author deftly explores 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.
modern poetry
B. L. Bruce's Poem "North" Published 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.
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.