Doug Bolling

Flash Sale!

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

FLASH SALE! $5 an issue plus free shipping! Click here for more information on how to snag this deal on copies of Volume 4, Issue 1.

Purchase Copies of Volume 4, Issue 1

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

TMR is here

If you wish to donate to The Magnolia Review to assist with paying for contributor copies, please click Donate here.

If you wish to purchase physical copies of The Magnolia Review, Volume 4, Issue 1, please click here to Purchase One, Two, Three, or Four Copies. Or send your payment through your PayPal account to themagnoliareview@gmail.com. Select Send Money, Pay for Goods or Services. Send the amount for the number of issues you would like, as well as a mailing address.

Or mail your payment to:

The Magnolia Review
Suzanna Anderson
PO Box 1332
Reynoldsburg, OH 43068

(Including Shipping and Tax, $20.13 for one copy, $36.25 for two copies, $52.38 for three copies, and $68.50 for four copies. Please make checks payable to Suzanna Anderson.)

Announcing The Magnolia Review Ink Award for Volume 4, Issue 1

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Thank you, Suzanna, for this wonderful opportunity. Each issue of The Magnolia Review is a beautiful selection of prose, poetry and art, and so I knew from the beginning that choosing one piece for the Ink Award would be difficult. Generally, my favorite works of literature and art make me think about them at odd times in a day, send their words or visuals to my mind when I’m driving or walking my dog or trying to fall asleep. I would return to reread those pieces in Volume 4, Issue 1 that did just that, then I let them travel with me again throughout my day. Repeat. Repeat. Maybe it’s because my life as a military spouse is often about change (moving, trainings, deployments, friends leaving) and maybe because my daughter will start kindergarten in the fall, the pieces that stood out most to me were those about transitions and change. In the end, there were certain phrasings and images I couldn’t shake from my head: “[t]he long roads of us,” “[m]ade feast from the leftovers of fields,” “backtracked on roads now strangered.” I also love how this poem ends with the word “end” although it continues to raise questions and encourages the reader to continue asking questions. And so, I have selected “Journey” by Doug Bolling as the winner of The Magnolia Review Ink Award.

Lisa Stice is a poet/mother/military spouse, the author of a poetry collection Uniform (Aldrich Press, 2016), and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She volunteers as a mentor with the Veterans Writing Project, as an associate poetry editor with 1932 Quarterly, and as a contributor for The Military Spouse Book Review. She received a BA in English literature from Mesa State College (now Colorado Mesa University) and an MFA in creative writing and literary arts from the University of Alaska Anchorage. While it is difficult to say where home is, she currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter and dog. You can learn more about her publications at https://lisastice.wordpress.com/.

Doug Bolling–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

 

  1. I work at home, usually in the same spot, favorite chair.

Though with sometimes a bit of roaming around room

To room in and out of shadows and sunlight, the coffee

And CDs helping. I like to think of Montaigne’s comments

About hiding away from the world’s distractions in his

Tower to trigger the writing. Once I lived in France for

A year and a half or so, thought it would be cool to

Scribble poems on scratch paper in the bistros along

The Left Bank—it didn’t work. Too many marvels

Going on table by table!

 

2. A pen begins it, carries on awhile then to the keyboard

Or typewriter. 0f course, it’s the mysterious little inner

Pen that drives the wagon.)

 

.       3.  No routine. It’s always something sudden, unexpected.

Once the spark comes it might go on for hours then dies

by its own rhythm.

 

  1. A long time.  Still remember with a shudder more or less

trying at age 11 or 12 to write a novel. Got maybe three

or four pages and gave up. But when I began again some years

ago I started with short stories then to poetry.

 

  1. (oops my cranky laptop won’t let me keep the left margin)

Just anyone who’s interested in joining the journey,

Preferably those who are already reading poetry, whether

Critically or for more or less innocent enjoyment.

 

  1. I believe it’s the absolute love of writing, wanting/needing to

Immerse in imagery, rhythm, how lines break, etc.

Blocking out happens often. Once, I tried to defeat it by

An act of will so to speak. Have since learned to let go,

Disappear. It comes when it comes, goes where it goes.

 

  1. Roaming, reading, getting out to rediscover the great green

Earth before it turns to cinders, connect with fellow sojourners.

 

  1. Hard to exclude anything much. Two moments do stand out.

 

  1. First, when an idea or image or line from another writer

(thinking here often of Pessoa, Lorca, Neruda) strikes

home and I have to do something with it. Then, later on,

the moments when the poem seems finally rounding out

and I get the confidence that I can bring it in.

 

  1. In another life I taught writing workshops and giving advice

went with the ice cream—but I back away from that now,

would rather leave it to others who know much more than I.

Something like figure out if writing is your love, your passion

And if it is go for it full speed, meaning both through the

Garden times and the blocks!  There may be wonders down

That rabbit hole.

Check out Doug’s work in the issues Volume 2, Issue 1 and Volume 3, Issue 1.