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As featured on NPR's Morning Edition

NPR’s Neda Ulaby reported on BLR‘s 20th Anniversary, featuring BLR Editor Danielle Ofri, along with author Celeste Ng. Long before Celeste Ng reached stratospheric popularity with Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, she was an emerging author, whose story “Girls, at Play” appeared in BLR and then won a Pushcart Prize.

Whiting Award Winner

BLR was awarded a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize for
“excellence in publishing, advocacy for writers, and a unique contribution to the strength of the overall literary community.”

BLR Off the Page

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“Silence = Death”  

His worn-out T-shirt, black as mourning, black / as countless deaths, surprises me

Telephone

These days I think of you/
on the yellow chaise/
with your Parkinson’s/ 
and hatred of telephones, 

Plazoleta

The ants climbed up the front of Macedonio’s sweater, circling the buttons.  They arrived at Macedonio’s chest, interested in a yogurt stain.  

The Initiation

Boy, he said, you got to fill a graveyard/
before you know this business

Nursing & Writing Roundtable: Part I

The intersect of poetry and nursing has always fascinated me. Though I now identify more as a writer than a nurse, the skills I learned in nursing school have served me well as a writer

You Know What She Means

And here is another thing you do not remember: your parents telling you that you have polio, and that they are taking you to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Northridge.

A Spring Without Us

The playground has been locked for months. / A swing coughs dryly in the shade.

Book Review: Poetry Roundup

These poems are antic, lustrous, vital engagements with the tangible artifacts of aging, illness, and the promise of dying

Parricide 

My father killed his mother, confessed it to me in his last year as the black dog of depression chased him toward his own grave.

Praise & Recognition