Nancy Bevilaqua's Blog

I've been laying low for quite some time, and I've moved (thank God!) from Florida back to New Jersey. A lot has changed, and life is good. Although I'm not writing poetry these days, I'm trying to learn how to play the guitar, and hope to set some of my already-written poems to music (I've managed to do part of one; my musician son pointed out that it uses all minor chords, which, to me, seems just right for the most part!).
However, for a long time I've wanted to publish a collection that includes the poems I wrote just as I was winding down from my feverish four-year bout of being a poet again. They are probably my favorites out of everything I've written, and I just wanted them to be "out there," rather than just languishing on my laptop (a few were actually published in the journals Juked, Hubbub, Prelude, and Hermeneutic Chaos).
So I present to you my new, and probably final, collection of poems, Gelyana. I'm publishing it only as a paperback because I've decided that I really don't like ebooks.
So, if anyone is interested, the book went live today on Amazon, and can be found here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/179693...

I hope you're all doing well in these strange and difficult times!

This is my second publication in the marvelous journal Hermeneutic Chaos. Shinjini Bhattacharjee is one of the most delightful editors I've ever had the pleasure of working with, and it's a pleasure to see her journal flourishing and becoming well-known--as it deserves to be.

http://www.hermeneuticchaosjournal.co...

(And yes--I'm aware that I made a tiny error in my reading of my own freaking poem in the recording! Heh... :) )

Now that (thanks to my son) I've entered the 21st century and ditched my DumbPhone in favor of a Smart one, I’ve finally gotten around to doing something I’ve wanted to do for a long time–I’ve started to make and upload to my YouTube channel videos in which I read my own poems.

Whenever I’m working on a poem, I spend a lot of time reading it out loud to myself; the sound and “music,” if you will, of what I write is at least as important to me as what I’m writing about. And I’ve always loved doing poetry readings–I just don’t get many opportunities to do that down here in north Florida.

And so, if you’re interested, please visit my channel (and subscribe if you like). So far the video aspect is pretty awful, but I’m working on that part. In any case, I’m more concerned about how the poems sound than about what I look like when I’m reading them!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvOM...

Editor April Michelle Bratten got in touch with me late last night to let me know that my poem "Thanksgiving (1997)" is now up in Up the Staircase Quarterly's gorgeous new issue.

All of the poems in the issue are accompanied by visual works; for my poem Shell Myers' perfect "Her Compassionate Hand" was chosen.

To make things even better, I'd just heard a few minutes earlier that my son had just won Honorable Mention for a piece of music he composed in the first composition competition he ever entered. If you read the poem, you'll understand why it seemed like such perfect synchronicity to have the two events happen on the same night.

http://www.upthestaircase.org/nancy-b...

I just found that this was posted at Atticus Review a week or so ago. It's another one of my "Dream Poems," written shortly after the death of Freddie Gray, which occurred following his arrest by Baltimore police. The poem started with a dream about my paralyzed pigeon, Cleo, who died a while back after 12 years with me.

https://atticusreview.org/ministratio...

Editor Rose Mary Boehm was kind enough to let me be one of Houseboat's featured poets! I love the images she chose to accompany my poems; several of the photographs are her own.

http://houseboathouse.blogspot.pe/201...

Again, this one is in print and I can't figure out how to include images in these blog posts (sorry!!), but you can read the poem on my FB page, here:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.ph...

I don't know how to include images in these Goodreads blog posts, so I'm just posting the link to the poem on my Facebook page. (Whiskey Island is a print journal, so I can't simply link to the poem.) I apologize for my relative cluelessness on these things. :)

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.ph...

The latest issue of Tinderbox Poetry Journal came out last night, and the editors were kind enough to include one of my poems:

http://www.tinderboxpoetry.com/backwater

The journal FLARE, which is out of Flagler College here in Saint Augustine, Florida, just released its Fall 2015 issue. My poem "At Delphi (1993)" is included.

http://issuu.com/bthompson73/docs/fla...