Articles

We know that gutsy writing and voracious reading go hand in hand, so I try to surround myself with beautiful books. Friendship with beautiful people whose writing I also love has been an important part of my writing life as well. Because I am fed by sitting with, listening to, and talking story with/befriending beautiful writer people…

Because too many of us have been hurt in ways both subtle and not quite so, we rightly feel the need to have our existence validated, often through the stories we urgently need to share. So, my dear writer, read and write. Keep reading. Keep writing. But above all, nurture that flame flickering inside of you. It will keep you warm on days when everyone around you acts as if they’re doubting you.

Though each poem possesses its own unique demands, themes, and structures, my work is always heavily rooted in human attachments and disconnects: to others, to self-perception, to culture and politics, to nature, to language, to the past and future, to hurt and healing.

I have been writing all my life. An array of commitments, particularly to the unvoiced and unheard, to an empassioned musical approach to language, to specific remarkable fellow writers, artists, relatives, and friends, have kept me writing.

Welcome to Bellingham Review’s Issue 79, our ninth annual online issue! Inside you’ll find the well-woven work of twenty-four different artists including writers of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

Right now, our country faces a crisis of mass incarceration. With five percent of the world’s population, we have twenty-five percent of the world’s incarcerated people.  The majority of these are held not in the federal prison system but in local facilities—jails.

I am honored and humbled to introduce the following poems written in response to my poem “I’ve Been Known.” First published almost twenty years ago in a wonderful (but now defunct) magazine called Margie, my poem was picked up by Billy Collins for his project Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools,

by Allison   I have been known to be young and naive; To wipe my nose on my sleeve; To beg and plead when I should just leave;  To doubt when I should believe; To say no when I mean yes please; To walk away when I should be on my knees; But as I …

I’ve been known to speak up and out of turn.
I’ve been known to heal from a burn.
I’ve discovered letting myself off the hook is how I learn.

I’ve been known
as a piece of shit.
Now I’m known
to pay the rent.