NEW RELEASE: Measures by B. L. Bruce (Poetry)

In February of 2014, B. L. Bruce’s debut collection of poetry, The Weight of Snow, was published. Now, seven years later, her latest collection, Measures, is here.

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In Measures, B. L. Bruce’s third collection of poetry, the author deftly explores grief, loss, 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.

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“As its poems tread through forests, over mountains, and along the water . . . Measures captivates.”  — Clarion Reviews

“[B. L. Bruce’s] newest poetry collection, Measures, by turns elicits tenderness and melancholy, hopefulness and heartbreak—which is to say, the gamut of the human condition. . . . Bruce’s collection offers many accomplished and memorable moments.”  — BlueInk Review

“Lyrical and reflective, award-winning Bruce’s latest, a collection of poems, micropoetry, and American haiku, offers a litany of ruminations on nature, love, and self. . . . Readers seeking meditations on nature, life, love, and spiritual renewal won’t be able to put [down] this perceptive, deeply engrossing read. This is a winner.” — The Prairies Book Review

"Lyrical poems on the beauty of the natural world contrasted against the fragile, sometimes broken nature of the human experience." — Andrea Janda, Visitant

“Lyrical poems on the beauty of the natural world contrasted against the fragile, sometimes broken nature of the human experience.” — Cheriese Francoise Anderson, Author of Wild Chai

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, The Remnant Archive, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, The Monterey Poetry Review, and the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, among many others. 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 four books: The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude, The Starling’s Song, and Measures. 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 her on Twitter @the_poesis and on Instagram @thepoesis.

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

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

CAPTURING CALIFORNIA’S COAST: SANTA CRUZ POET LAUNCHES DEBUT POETRY COLLECTION

“Alive with style and filled with beautiful, nostalgic imagery. Bruce’s free verse poetry is rich with detail, and her evocative language will stay with you long after reading this collection. Deeply introspective and profoundly insightful, each poems displays great thematic range and literary sensibility.”   - J. Rodriguez, Film Producer and Artist

“Haunting and provocative wile simple and natural. [The author’s] amazing gift of poetic writing and presentation cannot be missed.”   - Linda Harper, Author

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, January 27th — Local author and freelance editor Bri Bruce of Santa Cruz will release her debut collection of poems The Weight of Snow: New & Selected Poems on February 1, 2014 as the first work of Black Swift Press’s California Writers assemblage. She is planning a book launch party this spring that will include other local authors, artists, and creative minds.

Bruce, a freelance editor, graphic designer, photographer, and graduate of UC Santa Cruz’s literature department, has been working toward publishing her first collection of poetry for five years. Her work has appeared in dozens of magazines and literary publications, including Santa Cruz’s phren-Z and The Monterey Poetry Review. Last winter she was bestowed with the opportunity to read her work at the Museum of Art History in downtown Santa Cruz and was chosen for the Centrum Foundation’s writer’s residency. In addition, she is the owner of Bri Bruce Productions, a writing, editing, and graphic design company based out of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

San Francisco author and publisher Kermit Heartsong calls Bruce’s work, “Evocative, powerful, and transporting,” and the collection as a whole is “a poignant and beautiful story of a life, experiences, memories, and pain. Ms. Bruce is truly a gifted poet.”

Written in the vein of Mary Oliver, May Sarton, and the late Santa Cruz poet Maude Meehan, Bruce’s poems are inspired by California’s breathtaking Pacific coast and inland coastal regions. In her collection, she 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.

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