A journal of humanity and human experience
As featured on NPR's Morning Edition
Coming up in December
Join BLR Poetry editors Sarah M. Sala and Saleem Hue Penny for
“How Words Can Heal: a Celebration of the Intersection of Poetry and Medicine”
Wednesday Dec 15 at 7 pm EST (free)
BLR Off the Page
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A writing contest is an ocular hybrid of sorts, a combining of the eye of the reviewer and the eye of the editor with the eye of the judge.
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.
I am back with the ‘who’ of me, the self I left behind through the seasons of my years. The ultimate prize is this reconciliation with the original, unvarnished self.
I shit you not. Right in front of the elevator that spits you into our hospice, there is—get ready for this—a harpist. I mean, isn’t that like a teensy bit premature?
The girl in black dress and tights stands behind the fawn,/
hands clasped, their white blur forming almost/
a heart.
My medical knowledge is limited to what I have learned here at the lab. All of it applicable only to non-human mammals.
Jason Schneiderman reads “Loss,” a poem by Susan O’Dell Underwood
I did a little time once. It wasn’t a long bit, but that doesn’t matter much. Time is time.
If great literature arises from an unflinching examination of the tender underbelly of human existence, then a literary journal is a natural development for an institution such as Bellevue.
Praise & Recognition
“After reading it cover to cover, I came away walloped by the breadth and depth of the pain it highlights.”
“No human thing is more universal than illness, in all its permutations, and no literary publication holds more credibility on the subject than the Bellevue Literary Review.”
“A kaleidoscope of creativity. . . The selections are unsentimental and often unpredictable.”
“BLR's contents are at once practically instructive, and yet intangibly inspiring and utterly gripping. I can’t imagine my work as a writer, or a doctor, without it.”
“What is most impressive about the BLR, though, is how the editors can stretch their own boundaries.”
“The editors have produced a journal of uncommon literary quality.”
“Ask any healthcare worker, ask any patient who has come back from illness and fear, and you will hear stories that might change your life. That's what BLR offers.”
``BLR is loyal to its theme but never constrained by it, uncovering boundless tonal and narrative possibilities as it contemplates the body as a physical entity, probes the manifestation of mental illness, or reckons with how the racialized and gendered body is perceived.``
“I subscribe and receive literally hundreds of magazines every year. Of all those magazines, none stands out more than the Bellevue Literary Review.”
``BLR is open to many modes and styles of work; it has no house style except humanity (though excellent editing doesn't hurt either).”