Contributor Spotlight: Jehanne Dubrow
Jehanne Dubrow’s poem, “Swarm,” is part of Issue 79 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here.
What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?
A friend told me that a building in which I used to work had been overtaken by a swarm of bees, the hive growing so large that eventually bees began to fill all of the rooms, forcing everyone out for weeks, until the exterminators finally found a an appropriate solution for dealing with this protected species. The building had been a site of much grief for me; it was a place of trauma and abuse. So, the story of the bees was irresistible. Sometimes the world just gives us our poems, and we only need to pay attention.
Tell us about your writing life.
My poems are often obsessed with the intersection of small, personal histories with large-scale, national histories. I write about cruelty and violence, the question of how we represent trauma on the page.
Which non-writing aspect(s) of your life most influences your writing?
Perfume. Handmade textiles. Visual art.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
You’ll solve the problems of this poem in your next poem.
What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)?
I always return to Louise Gluck’s book, The Wild Iris.
What are you reading right now?
And After the Fire, by Lauren Belfer
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
I’m working on a collection of poems called Civilians (it’s the final book in my military spouse trilogy, which started with Stateside and was followed by Dots & Dashes). I’m also writing a book of essays about art, which is called Exhibitions.
Anything else our readers might want to know about you?
I was born in Italy and grew up in Yugoslavia, Zaire, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and the United States.
Where can our readers connect with you online?
JEHANNE DUBROW is the author of seven poetry collections, including most recently American Samizdat (Diode Editions, 2019), and a book of creative nonfiction, Throughsmoke: An Essay in Notes (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her eighth collection of poems, Simple Machines, won the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award and will be published by the University of Evansville Press in fall 2020. Her ninth poetry book, Wild Kingdom, is forthcoming from LSU Press in 2021. Jehanne’s work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Pleiades, and The Southern Review. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.
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