Kirjahaku

Dog-Adoption bureaucrats, psychotic deer, lonely magical creatures who just want to hang out and maybe eat your kids; the stories of CL Bledsoe are often strange and always entertaining. Whether they're summoning a demon to get out of having to go to work or trying to escape from Santa's labor camp, the characters in Bledsoe's stories weirdly relatable while living in unfamiliar worlds. These stories span Bledsoe's career from the beginning up until about 2:30 p.m., last Tuesday.

C.L. Bledsoe s savage, hallucinatory, and ironic third chapbook Leap Year by Red Ceilings Press opens a window into the mind of the insane. Taken as a whole, which is clearly the intent each of the 29 poems is titled with the date, as if the book is a journal written in February of a leap year the book reveals day-to-day life in a mental institution, blending black humor with the isolation and humiliation of an imaginative, wry speaker. Leap Year is an ambitious book, yet Bledsoe pulls it off with a masterful performance. It s utterly unforgettable.: -Elizabeth Swann, Prick of the Spindle

In DRIVING AROUND, LOOKING IN OTHER PEOPLE'S WINDOWS, Bledsoe tackles the agonies and bittersweet triumphs of modern life with resolute and unflinching commitment. Moments of humor bite through prolonged meditations on the past. Hypothetical explorations, controlled thought-spirals, and vignettes from life are held generously open-ended, which speaks to a universal kind of shared grief, a universal unknowing, and longing.

In his twelfth poetry collection, CL Bledsoe uses absurdity to explore the landscape of his own grief and to come to terms with the question of how to live in the world as a moral being. At times funny, at times tragic, Bledsoe's poems explore existential questions with the wit he's become known for.

In his 14th poetry collection, Bledsoe explores the emotional impact of the pandemic using a sardonic sense of humor contrasted with sincere observations, creating an intense emotional experience. His poems range from personal anecdotes about his childhood and adult life, to surreal portraits that explore significant themes of alienation and love. Similar in scope to The Bottle Episode, B Sides and Rarities is a moving commentary on the state of America today.

The poems in CL Bledsoe's fifth collection are at turns funny and tragic, self-deprecating and deeply personal, as readers have come to expect from the author of the autobiographical collection Riceland. In Trashcans In Love, Bledsoe continues to write about the Arkansas Delta of his youth, where "we were...all looking for a place/to stick our hearts for safe-keeping" while "the boarded-over windows/of our mothers' eyes watched from graves half dug/but not full yet." Ultimately, "we aren't looking/ for tomorrow, only an eternal today."

Your friend invites you to his new theme park he's opening in his back yard. Your wife has a plan to make scarves out of animals like that pop star she saw on TV wears and sell them at the flea market. A heartbroken dinosaur won't get off your couch since he broke up with his girlfriend. An apocalypse of ladybugs threatens all of humanity. The flash fiction stories in CL Bledsoe's second collection range from the surreal to the funny to the deeply moving.

King of Loneliness presents innovative and accessible poems about a 21st century America caught between irony and anxiety. In his fifth book of poetry, Bledsoe uses humor and an honest eye to tour a republic whose citizens have been uprooted by media saturation, political absurdity, and personal uncertainty.

In this astounding collection, Bledsoe builds a new world that is at once surprising, yet familiar, in the way that dreams so often are. "If you say the moon's name/ when she's full she will expect a foot/ rub and make a lot of pointed/ comments about her needs." The world presented here has its own creation myth. Beauty and wisdom are found tucked into the most unexpected places, as in "What Poetry Is For," which moves with agility from dust to mice to memories. These poems lodge in the reader's memory; they're "what we take with us that won't fit/ in boxes."-Elizabeth MacDuffie, founding editor, Meat for Tea: The Valley ReviewIt is difficult to write about one's children without sinking into sentimentality, but CL Bledsoe manages it with grace, wit, and humor. Beginning with the daughter's difficult birth, he relates the simple daily activities and interactions between father and small child, by turns humorous, poignant, and wistful. You'll want to join CL and daughter on this adventure.-Gregory Luce, author of Riffs & Improvisations and Literary Editor, BourgeonOn the surface, this is the story of a single father and daughter, from her mastery of his digital camera left around the house, to her radiant tangle of uncombable hair, to the quirky stories he tells her of mythical creatures. What's more remarkable is that it's really the father's story. How he sustains himself through three jobs, no sleep, and anger from relatives. How his melancholy almost defeats him. Both are amazing stories, but it's the second one that hits home with the pure accuracy of an arrow through a bullseye. I am incapacitated with the love and beauty of his portrayal, and I want nothing more. -Donald Illich, author of Chance BodiesThe poems in Having a Baby to Save a Marriage are the roller-coaster of a man's heart. A man navigating the brutal realities of 21st century America and the sluggish disappointments of post-divorce life, who finds himself enchanted by a small, magical creature who happens to be his daughter. Part love story, part fairy tale, part protective spell, Bledsoe writes as if his words are the crumbs for his daughter to follow out of the haunted forest. This lovely collection is testimony in its purest and most vulnerable form.-Beth Gordon, author of This Small Machine of Prayer and The Water Cycle

Since the death of his ex-girlfriend, Butter has been trapped in a cycle of alcohol and drug abuse. After dropping out of college, he goes to live with his sister in the small, deeply religious town of Searcy, Arkansas, where there's no alcohol allowed and it's illegal to curse in public. Once there, he gets a new job, meets some new friends and potential lovers, but as he tries to rebuild his life, he's haunted by the memories of his ex-girlfriend, whose ultimate self-destruction he feels responsible for.

The poet shows great imaginative power. The flowing ease of expression confirms the fact that the style of these poems has an impressive spontaneity. The poet's sense of music is quite attractive in the words and phrases used in these poems.

We called him Stinky Dan: The Piss Man. It was a song we'd sing when we saw him.

The poems are full of lyrical force and show freshness of style. No doubt, this is a significant work. The poems have great power of observation and originality of imagination.

A pulse of lyricism in these poems is irresistible and indubitable. The style of the poet is simple, sweet and satisfying. Beautiful word-pattern and enchanting melody in these poems are quite impressive. The chief characteristic of these poems is extreme simplicity of style united with profound emotion. The poems reveal impressive imagination, blended with strange and beautiful word-pictures.