Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Welcome Sara Biggs Chaney!
Bloodroot is committed to a rotating editorial team. This year we welcome the celebrated poet and teacher Sara Biggs Chaney. Sara’s been a Lecturer at Dartmouth since 2005. She teaches writing and writes in the time left over (what there is of it). She has two chapbooks and a full-length collection in search of a publisher called Hagia Animalia. It’s about the relationship between women and animals, especially in the Catholic tradition. Sara’s poems have recently appeared in Whiskey Island, Hotel Amerika, RHINO, The Normal School, The Superstition Review, and elsewhere.
1. Who are you reading right now?
Right now, I am reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Composition and Cornel West, by Keith Gilyard. In terms of poetry, I’m always reading new work by contemporary poets… a few of my favorites are Solmaz Sharif, Maggie Smith and Kaveh Akbar. I also look forward to every new issue of Waxwing, Muzzle, and Blueshift. These online magazines are, in my opinion, publishing some of the freshest and best work around.
2. Do you write on paper or use your computer to generate a first draft?
Either/or. Usually paper first, and I’m not sure I’d even call it writing—more of a jotting of notes, fragments, relevant vocabulary. Those notes might become a hand-written draft (usually written really fast…I often feel as though I have to outwrite my mind or I’ll never write at all) that later becomes a draft on the computer.
3. What books/authors do you keep coming back to?
I’m sort of embarrassingly narrow in my poetry loves. The first will be the last. I am forever going back to Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris. I’m dimly aware that it’s not too cool to love Glück these days, but love her I do.
4. Are you working on a larger project right now?
I am trying to expand a collection of poems inspired by iconic scenes from film noir. But to be honest, the recent election has me thrown into uncertainty about what to write and for whom. I’m trying to think more about where I can be of most use. I’m thinking that maybe I should try my hand at essay writing, along with other forms that could reach a broader audience.
5. What inspires you?
Weird & magical bits of information. Like, one time I decided to learn about bioluminescence and I learned that one of the enzymes responsible for bioluminescence is actually called LUCIFERASE. I mean, the mere fact that such a word exists is cause for a celebratory poem! Another time, I learned all about dragonfly eyes and *wow* that was nightmarishly cool. I’ll tell you, my science education was mediocre at best, so when I discovered what a compound eye looks like my world was pretty much transformed. Visual images are a great inspiration to me. An complex or unfamiliar image helps me write because it helps me surprise myself.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Thank You Nancy!
Thank you everyone who came out last night to support Bloodroot! Very special thanks to Nancy Cressman, pictured above, who picked us the most delightful flowers just before the reading started.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Bloodroot at Left Bank
We will have a Bloodroot reading & meeting at Left Bank Books in
Hanover, NH this Tuesday, October 4th at 7PM. Left Bank Books is located
over the Dirt Cowboy Cafe, on Main Street. Bring a friend & bring a
piece you want to share!
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Submissions
We will be accepting submissions from September 15-December 31. Please
send us a word doc or docx with 3-5 pages of poetry or 10-12 pages of
fiction. Anything outside that scope, like an experimental form or
digital project, please send a one-page proposal and we will be in touch
if we want to see more.
We are looking for new, unpublished work.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if it's been chosen for publication elsewhere.
There is no submission fee. Please send your submissions here: bloodroot.literary@gmail.com
We will let you know our decisions by February.
We are looking for new, unpublished work.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if it's been chosen for publication elsewhere.
There is no submission fee. Please send your submissions here: bloodroot.literary@gmail.com
We will let you know our decisions by February.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Contributor Profile: Florence Fogelin
1. Who are you reading right now?
I just finished Gould’s Book of Fish, before that A Brief History of Seven Killings. An Andrea Camilleri novel (I forget which one), set in Sicily, for R&R!! Poetry: Pamela Harrison and David Sullivan. I just bought The Sound and the Fury, having seen a superb production last year in NYC.
2. Do you write on paper or use your computer to generate a first draft?
I let things rattle around in my head, often for quite a long time. Then I write on paper: a scrap, a notebook, or sitting down at a proper desk. I resist putting it into the computer, because it looks “finished” when it isn’t. Then many revisions.
3. What books/authors do you keep coming back to?
Seamus Heaney, Alice Fulton, Wanda Syzmborska—and of course Robert Frost is always in my head.
4. Are you working on a larger project right now?
I have a title: Explanatory Value. A number of poems I’m not yet happy with.
5. What inspires you?
Visual, visual, visual. But what to make of what I see? Meaning and metaphor must kick in. And of course, the usual things: love and death.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Contributor Profile: Giavanna Munafo
I read David Bezmozgis's The Free World and Ta-Nehisi
Coates's Between the World and Me and this winter,
and was blown away by both of these very different books. Now I am
well into the second book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series,
having just finished Deborah Harkness's Discover of Witches trio.
Both of these historical novel series are fun romps featuring time-travel and
feel a bit like beach-reading training. Since I’m several years into a draft of
my first novel, I'm gobbling up fiction of all sorts to learn how it’s
done. As for poetry, I am carrying around and about to read Kay Ryan’s most
recent collection and, very happily, a first edition, signed copy of Judy
Grahn’s 1978 The Work of a Common Woman that I found in Northampton
last weekend at Gabriel Books.
Also, on the suggestion of
writer/dancer/teacher and new friend Megan Buchanan I am
reading A Woman’s Thing, “The Mothers and Grandmothers Issue,"
which is lovely and full of insightful writing. It's available in print and
online at awomensthing.org
2. Do you write on paper or use your
computer to generate a first draft?
Almost always I draft and revise
on my adored Macbook Air, which I take everywhere. I jot down
tidbits — ideas and quotes — on my phone's Notes app,
too, and, rarely, on paper if some is handy. The exception to this rule is when
I am actually on a beach or shoreline, and then I write longhand on
paper and enjoy it immensely. Last summer I kept a journal during a
vacation in Maine. It was the first journal-writing I have done in many
years, and it was a powerful reminder of how differently ideas and
words emerge in this mode. I even illustrated some of the
entries — not being a visual artist this was a leap and really
opened me up to creative receptivity.
3. What books/authors do you keep
coming back to?
Morrison’s Beloved, over and
over. And if you haven’t heard her read it, download it now!
4. Are you working on a larger project
right now?
Several. As mentioned above, a first
novel called After Thomas about a 40-year old, reclusive,
ex-history professor named Josephine who assumes responsibility for
raising her infant nephew when, at the
books’s opening, her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a
car accident. The book, which takes place over the course of one year, is about
Josephine’s process through grief, her reckoning with the haunting yet curative
presence of her dead sister, and how she reclaims a hold on life. I have also
been writing, off and on, a family history or memoir project. In the fall I
spent about a month obsessing on Ancestry.com and hunting down stories from
relatives. Lastly, having been a poet since girlhood, I keep an eye on
the life of my poems, organizing them into sections for possible books, sending
one or two out to journals every now and then, and occasionally writing a new
one.
5. What inspires you?
The sea. Loss and suffering. Joy and
adventure. Teaching. Reading. Sitting down and tapping out the words.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Editor Profile: Rena Mosteirin
The books on my bedside table are all poetry at the moment:
Anne Carson The Beauty of the Husband
Lucille Clifton Blessing the Boats
Keetje Kuipers Beautiful in the Mouth
Jessica Fisher Frail-Craft
Kevin Yang An Aquarium
Denise Duhmel Two and Two
2. Do you write on paper or use your computer to generate a
first draft?
Computer. I have a light laptop that’s always with me. When
I have an idea and I can’t pull out my laptop I use the notepad app on my
phone.
3. What books/authors do you keep coming back to?
Every morning I open up Moby-Dick and type a line out of the
book into Twitter. I’m tweeting the whole book as a way to deepen my
relationship to the text. I’ve done a series of erasure poems based on it.
Every year at Christmas I re-read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Be Here Now
by Baba Ram Dass is written in this funny, crazy, loving way and the
illustrations are gorgeous. In fiction I can’t get enough Shirley Jackson, Siri
Hustvedt, Louise Erdrich, Ann Beattie, Cristina Garcia. Sandor Marai’s work
stays with me long after I’ve turned the last page, especially Embers. My poetic obsessions currently
are Rainer Maria Rilke, Claudia Rankine, Julie Carr and C.D Wright.
4. Are you working on a larger project right now?
I’m working on a young adult series called Red Barn Records about a group of female
best friends who are brilliant: an artist, a musician, a horsewoman, a budding
engineer and computer scientist. Together they create a recording studio in a
red barn the summer before their senior year of high school. They record a
folk-punk record and make a podcast detailing the superpowers of their
neighbors in this small town in Vermont. The podcast reveals stunning truths
about their neighbors and reunites two prisoners of war.
They
navigate a coming-out, an eating disorder, a first love and a love-triangle. In
the second book, which I’m just finishing the first draft of now, they take on
sexual assault and transgender teenage hood. I love this project. The
characters feel real to me. There was a time in my life when I lived in a red
barn with a bunch of dazzling women, and working on these books gives me a
chance to honor that time.
5. What inspires you?
The Fourth Wave of feminism inspires me and motivated me to make Bloodrootlit.org
happen in a digital way. Other digital projects of mine include an end-word map generator which is a tool I wrote to help poets write sestinas—the code itself
is a sestina!—the Moby-Dick Twitter project, and my poetry blog White Whale Crossing which is like a digital notebook and home to
355 of my poems. When I started blogging, I was having this recurring nightmare
of being buried alive. That was an inspiration too—I realized in order to make
the nightmare stop, I needed to get my voice out there. I want to be heard.
Friday, May 20, 2016
Editor Profile: Phyllis Katz
l. Who are you reading right now?
I am reading Ruth Stone’s What Love Comes to and In the Galaxy and Jane Hirshfield’s Come Thief. I am drawn to
Stone’s work because she was so prolific and captivating in her 80’s and I am
just turning 80 myself. I like her wit,
her intellect, and the strength and confidence of her voice. I love the artful, deceptive simplicity and truth
of Hirshfield’s poems. I’ve for the
first time been reading her Ten Windows, a
wonderful follow up to Nine Gates, both
books offering very fine insights into how and why poems work. I have also just finished Major Jackson’s powerful
new book Roll Deep.
2. Do you write on paper or use your computer to generate a
first draft?
I have composed exclusively on the computer for many years;
however, I am now doing first drafts in a notebook before I touch the computer,
and I am finding this process both more thoughtful and more generative.
3. What books/authors do you keep coming back to?
Pindar and Horace and Neruda for their odes, Sappho for the
beauty and mystery of her largely fragmentary poems. Emily Dickinson is a
favorite as are Robert Frost and David Ferry.
I am also repeatedly drawn to the work of Maxine Kumin, especially The Long Marriage. I go back frequently
to Jean Connor’s beautiful A Cartography
of Peace, a marvelous book of clear and deep poems, beautifully executed.
4. Are you working on a larger project right now?
I am beginning to put together a third book of poems, very
tentatively entitled Pindar’s Daughter. After a long unavoidable hiatus, I am
determined to make real progress before winter sets in again.
5. What Inspires You?
My husband of 56 years died in January. I have recently
written a number of poems born from feelings of loss and grief. Even these
poems, however, are often triggered by nature, as well, especially by animals
or birds, by works of art or music, or by recent political or social events
such as the tragic massive migrations from Africa and Syria. For general subject
matter I try to follow the wise observations of my 95 year old poet friend
Carol Armstrong, whose recent book is so aptly entitled Everything Waits to be Noticed.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Editor Profile: Ivy Schweitzer
1. Who are you reading right now?
I am reading Vievee Francis’ new book
of poetry, Forest Primeval, because she is coming to teach at Dartmouth
(lucky us), Laura Foley’s Night Ringing, and Frances Fogelin’s Once
It Stops, as a result of their recent, terrific poetry reading at the
Norwich Bookstore. I also just bought Rumi: The Book of Love edited by
Coleman Barks, which I am eager to dive into.
2. Do you write on paper or use your
computer to generate a first draft?
I write almost completely on my
computer, even for first drafts. I sometime jot down notes on scraps, but then
I cannot read them! I also jot down ideas on my macbook air, which has become
almost an extension of my brain and hand. I love the ease of cutting and
pasting; typing is like playing a musical instrument with keys.
3. What books/authors do you keep
coming back to?
I always seem to come back to Whitman
and Dickinson (with a dose of Emerson’s formidable essay “The Poet,”) but that
might be because I teach them frequently and my next big project will be
blogging a poem by Dickinson everyday for the year 1862 (when she wrote,
according to some estimates, 364 poems!). I also bought A Year with Rumi:
Daily Readings, to read along with the gal from Amherst. But I also
have more contemporary touchstones: Marilyn Hacker’s Love, Death and the
Changing of the Seasons, when I want to immerse myself in the sonnet form
and raging love of women, any of Grace Paley’s poetry when I want to give my
political and ethical anger form, Lucille Clifton for amazing concision and
general wallop, Anne Sexton for pure anguish, Li Young Li for passion and
whimsey, among others.
4. Are you working on a larger project
right now?
Yes, I am putting together a manuscript
of poetry tentatively entitled Undammed, and I am embarking on research
for the Emily Dickinson blog described above. Just won a small grant to begin
working on that project this Fall when I will be in residence in London.
5. What inspires you?
Life inspires me. Courage, euphoria,
despair and above all connection, the human connection. What we cannot live
without Oh, and the changing of the seasons (which Hacker borrowed from Keats,
another absolute favorite of mine).
Monday, May 9, 2016
Launched
Check out Bloodroot's Inaugural Digital edition here:
Bloodrootlit.org
Let us know what you think in the comments section here!
Bloodrootlit.org
Let us know what you think in the comments section here!
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Launching Soon!
Our anticipated launch date for Bloodroot's inaugural digital edition is Friday, May 6th.
Stay tuned!
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Delay
We haven't been able to send out our acceptances/rejections yet and we do apologize for the delay. You can
expect to hear from us in April regarding your submission. Thanks for bearing with us.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Updated Timeline
If you've sent work to Bloodroot, thank you. You can
expect to hear from us in February regarding your submission. Hope 2016 is off to a great start.
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