Blood Orange Review is pleased to announce its nominations for Best New Poets 2009. For those of you who are unaware, Best New Poets is an anthology that selects 50 poems from literary magazines and writing programs each year. Jeb Livingood, series editor, approached our table at this year’s AWP conference, though this was not our first introduction to BNP. Our very own Stephanie Lenox published her poem, “Making Love to Leopard Man”, in the 2006 series.
Our Nominations:
Sarah Layden—“Something in the Way”
Jacqueline Powers—“Continuum Mechanics”
We appreciate publications that focus on emerging writers and hope you will keep an eye out for this year’s selection which BNP will announce sometime after June 1. By the way, every year features a guest editor and the GE this year is the fun, intriguing, and perhaps infamous poet Kim Addonizio.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Sweet Sixteen
We're pleased to announce the arrival of the 16th issue of Blood Orange Review!It's nice, clean and ready for a new day!
Featuring artwork by:
Charles Borges Accardi
Writing by:
Bridget Bell
Jon Boisvert
Leah Browning
Scott Gould
Sean Patrick Hill
Jalina Mhyana
Adam Pellegrini
Richard Schiffman
And audio poems by:
Anne Haines
Sarah Layden
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy ♥ Day!
The next issue of Blood Orange Review will be coming out at the end of the month. In the meantime, please enjoy this Valentine from poet Sean Patrick Hill, who will appear in the forthcoming issue. (Sign up here to be first in line to get an email when the new issue is available.)
Love Terns
to Erynn
There is no love like theirs.
They couple, I’m told,
for life.
They build no nest
but balance eggs in palms,
on fronds and bare branches.
When trade winds come
roaring off the ocean,
there is no greater exposure,
and terns have no choice,
either they know
or hope
the branch will hold.
I can’t pretend to know
on what such brooding turns.
Theirs is the deepest love.
They must prevail.
The wind will never end.
About the poet: Sean Patrick Hill is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnham Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, RealPoetik, New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Juked, Sawbuck, Redactions, and Quarter After Eight. He also is a blogger for Fringe Magazine. His blog site is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.
About the poem: "Long story short: I wrote the poem after watching the same PBS special about the Seychelle Islands and the "Love Terns" there over the course of a few years. Spent seven hours or so writing the poem for my wife. A friend told me to enter it in this "Love Letter" contest held by the millionaire Henry Zimand in honor of his wife, Anda, who died fairly young of cancer. I was a finalist, and Henry flew Erynn and I to NYC on Valentine's Day, put us up in a Central Park Hotel, and gave us $500. This was during the nor'easter that dumped 27 inches of snow in one night. We met the actress Jane Seymour who stood next to me and read my poem on television (apparently, national). Then we got a carriage ride through Central Park. Not only that, but we realized we were the grand prize winners, and thus Henry flew my wife and I to Europe and put us up for 5 nights in Monte Carlo, on a hotel on the Mediterranean, plus $1000. We asked if he could fly us into London and out of Madrid, and hence we had our honeymoon. We still have quite a time considering our luck."
Love Terns
to Erynn
There is no love like theirs.
They couple, I’m told,
for life.
They build no nest
but balance eggs in palms,
on fronds and bare branches.
When trade winds come
roaring off the ocean,
there is no greater exposure,
and terns have no choice,
either they know
or hope
the branch will hold.
I can’t pretend to know
on what such brooding turns.
Theirs is the deepest love.
They must prevail.
The wind will never end.
About the poet: Sean Patrick Hill is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnham Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, RealPoetik, New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Juked, Sawbuck, Redactions, and Quarter After Eight. He also is a blogger for Fringe Magazine. His blog site is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.
About the poem: "Long story short: I wrote the poem after watching the same PBS special about the Seychelle Islands and the "Love Terns" there over the course of a few years. Spent seven hours or so writing the poem for my wife. A friend told me to enter it in this "Love Letter" contest held by the millionaire Henry Zimand in honor of his wife, Anda, who died fairly young of cancer. I was a finalist, and Henry flew Erynn and I to NYC on Valentine's Day, put us up in a Central Park Hotel, and gave us $500. This was during the nor'easter that dumped 27 inches of snow in one night. We met the actress Jane Seymour who stood next to me and read my poem on television (apparently, national). Then we got a carriage ride through Central Park. Not only that, but we realized we were the grand prize winners, and thus Henry flew my wife and I to Europe and put us up for 5 nights in Monte Carlo, on a hotel on the Mediterranean, plus $1000. We asked if he could fly us into London and out of Madrid, and hence we had our honeymoon. We still have quite a time considering our luck."
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Table 728 in Chicago
Come visit the Blood Orange Review table at AWP in Chicago, February 11 - 14. All the editors will be there.
Stop by and say "hi" and pick up our snazzy new postcards to send to a friend. The new issue will be out by the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!
Stop by and say "hi" and pick up our snazzy new postcards to send to a friend. The new issue will be out by the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Blood Orange Review 3.4 is here
Editor’s Note--Stung
Blood Orange Review 3.4
In a story from this new issue, “Once the Queen Is Gone” by Jeremy Griffin, one character chooses to study biochemistry, specifically the pheromones of honeybees, after being attacked by a hive that results in a week’s stay in the hospital. In the same story, the main character arrives on the doorstep of a former lover to “tell her things about love and fulfillment and mistakes and forgiveness,” or, on second thought, maybe just to see what might happen. Drawn to what has stung them, both characters find themselves pinned between what they separately want and fear.
The poems of Jeff Hanson reveal a person seeking to remake himself, and in one instance, getting what he wants only to find he can’t handle it. In “The Artist’s Father” by Brently Johnson, a father watches his son and weighs, self-consciously, whether it’s the moment itself or the preservation of that moment through language that matters more. “Avalanche” by Gregory Lawless offers a speaker tumbling through life after life hoping eventually to get it right. Poem after poem, story after story, the voices in this issue waver then begin, ever so slightly, to tip.
Jim Fagiolo’s unnervingly beautiful landscapes appear as monumental still lifes. Look at “Ruby Lake” or “Portage Glacier” which serves as the doorway to our new issue; so clear and reflective, the water seems to point to the impossibility of it staying that way. If you found yourself on a dock like the one in “Blue Lake,” how could you not throw a stone out and ruin all that stillness?
I’m drawn to the way the work here pulls the reader into that frozen moment through words or images. We’re along for the ride as the subjects, for better or worse, try to make something happen. It feels right that they don’t always know what they want or where they’re going or why they do the things they do. Rattled or wounded, the subjects take us out of our own uncertainty and give us the uncertainty of someone else to ponder for a while. Thank you, literature and art; it’s exactly what we need right now.
Stephanie Lenox, editor
Blood Orange Review
PS – In this issue, the editors have selected several works to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize. We’re thankful for the work in this issue and in all the ones we’ve published, which after stinging us once, continues to draw us toward it.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
September Issue of Blood Orange Review
Editor’s Note -- Soft LightBlood Orange Review 3.3
I used to live a couple of blocks from Raymond Carver’s former home. In the evenings, I’d walk past on the dark street and peer in through the warm light of the undressed windows to see walls of bookshelves in an empty living room. I always half expected to glance in and see him sitting in a worn chair, reading in the soft light. Somehow, it was comforting to think that at one point, he sat right there, in a little house at the intersection of two anonymous streets. He and I shared the same view of the sometimes turbulent and sometimes pacific Strait of Juan de Fuca .
When the cacophony of human life becomes hushed and I am granted the chance to observe discreetly, I become mesmerized with the tender, tragic theater before me. When I stride anonymously along the unlit sidewalks and look into windows at the sheeted birdcages and abandoned dining rooms, I can imagine the lives of the people that had just slipped invisibly out of sight. I love them, the ghosts that haunt my nighttime meanderings. This is the way literature blends in with my day and blurs at the edges. It is the way I carry other writers and their creations with me.
The writing and artwork in the current issue of Blood Orange Review has captivated me in much the same way. Douglas Bruton’s short piece, “A Pebble from the River for Annie” shows a character during a crisis moment that will re-shape the very essence of her being for the rest of her life; the young girl will haunt me as much as Dickens’ Miss Havisham. Laura Ring’s poem, “Grimes Grave” is one that must be read out loud to feel the muscle and grist and hear the scrape of metal on stone.
The issue is compact and powerful, but it isn’t all seriousness or tragedy; Brandon R. Schrand and Calvin Mills offer two humorous contemplations on the ways two writers confront failure. And Jane Linders’ photography (Mike Ross’ Big Rig Jig is show above) is quirky and marvelous.
The September 2008 issue of Blood Orange Review has come together in the midst of intense political, economic, and social anxiety, and I think that it is palpable in the issue. It feels like a strong vibration in the air, perhaps something like oboe music drifting in from the neighbor’s backyard.
Heather K. Hummel, editor
Blood Orange Review
Monday, September 15, 2008
Where do your rejections live?
Keep your eye out for the next issue of Blood Orange Review appearing online later this month. Below is an excerpt from a forthcoming essay by Calvin Mills entitled "Mathematics, Gallbladders, and Sticking Your Babies in the Mail". To be alerted to the publication of the next issue, which will include the full text of this essay and other great works by new and established writers, enter your contact information in the box to the right of this post.
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This simple mathematical approach allowed me to see my rejections not as personal attacks, but as steps forward, items checked off a list. Incidentally, this method did work for me. I landed a story before I hit 100. I still use this method from story to story. I keep sending them out, and sometimes I actually smile a bit when I get a rejection in the mail, because it means my evil plan is working.
Now that you’re considering doing the math and sending your big-eyed babes out into the wild, wild world, here are a few thoughts to help you stay sane during the process:
1. Never have just one baby in the mail. . .
2. Consider the magical power of “buffer time”. . .
3. Read rejection letters just far enough to determine they are actually rejection letters. Then stop reading. . .
4. Sometimes adversity is your friend. Don’t believe me? Make a list of 100 successful child actors. Try to find more than five who you admire now that they’re grown up. . .
5. Remember that there is always another (or a better) magazine out there. . .
Of course, after the thin, crummy advice above wears off, some small part of you is bound to feel like a failure when an editor sends a neglected baby back to your ZIP code. But don’t let that part of you be a big, important organ like your brain or your heart. Don’t even let it be your lungs—we don’t want them letting you down while you sleep. Sleep apnea is a bitch. Allow the failure to be housed in a small unimportant organ inside you—one you can live without. A tonsil or appendix would be my first choice, but many of you may already be sans these superfluous organs. Then what? Okay, I know what you’re considering, but let’s not lose our fertility over this. I was thinking more along the lines of the gallbladder, or a single kidney. Do some research, and choose your own failure hotel somewhere on a less popular street along the super-highways that are your entrails. Once you’ve designated the location, run your establishment like the old commercials for the Roach Motel, “Rejections check in—but they don’t check out!”
Calvin Mills teaches English at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. His stories and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Short Story, WeirdTales, The Caribbean Writer, Tales from the South Vol. 1, Timber Creek Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals and magazines.
Now that you’re considering doing the math and sending your big-eyed babes out into the wild, wild world, here are a few thoughts to help you stay sane during the process:
1. Never have just one baby in the mail. . .
2. Consider the magical power of “buffer time”. . .
3. Read rejection letters just far enough to determine they are actually rejection letters. Then stop reading. . .
4. Sometimes adversity is your friend. Don’t believe me? Make a list of 100 successful child actors. Try to find more than five who you admire now that they’re grown up. . .
5. Remember that there is always another (or a better) magazine out there. . .
Of course, after the thin, crummy advice above wears off, some small part of you is bound to feel like a failure when an editor sends a neglected baby back to your ZIP code. But don’t let that part of you be a big, important organ like your brain or your heart. Don’t even let it be your lungs—we don’t want them letting you down while you sleep. Sleep apnea is a bitch. Allow the failure to be housed in a small unimportant organ inside you—one you can live without. A tonsil or appendix would be my first choice, but many of you may already be sans these superfluous organs. Then what? Okay, I know what you’re considering, but let’s not lose our fertility over this. I was thinking more along the lines of the gallbladder, or a single kidney. Do some research, and choose your own failure hotel somewhere on a less popular street along the super-highways that are your entrails. Once you’ve designated the location, run your establishment like the old commercials for the Roach Motel, “Rejections check in—but they don’t check out!”
Calvin Mills teaches English at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. His stories and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Short Story, WeirdTales, The Caribbean Writer, Tales from the South Vol. 1, Timber Creek Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals and magazines.
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