poet – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: Karina Longo, editor of La Rotonde Review

‘I wanted to build a space that balanced curation with inclusion.’

Well over a century ago, the Parisian bistro Café de la Rotonde was well-known as a creative hub for artists like Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, and for fostering avant-garde art movements like dadaism and surrealism. By the 1920s it had become a popular hangout for expatriate American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and other writers, philosophers, and intellectuals.

Karina Longo, editor-in-chief of La Rotonde Review

The bistro’s reputation as a catalyst for creativity inspired poet Karina Longo to bestow its name on her recently launched online poetry magazine. La Rotonde Review made its debut in January with an aim, as Karina explains on the magazine’s about page, “to offer a space where high-quality poetry is celebrated, and poets from all backgrounds are supported.” La Rotonde Review got off to a great start in January with its inaugural poem, “Salt,” by Joseph Fasano, and has been publishing fantastic work since. Soon, La Rotonde Review will publish its first anthology: a collection of poems connected to the theme of “dissolution,” which she discusses in more detail below.

Karina, who can be found on Twitter as @TheDarkestStar_, is a neurodivergent Brazilian-Italian poet based in Milan. She has been published in many impressive literary magazines, including Expat Press, Apocalypse Confidential, Eunoia Review, Eulogy Press, Some Words, Trampoline Poetry, Michigan City Review of Books, Dodo Eraser, HAWKEYE, Burning House Press, Blood + Honey, Be About It Press, Mythic Picnic, cataloguing poetry, Micromance Magazine, Resurrection Mag, Londemere Lit, and Prosetrics. She also has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Read on to learn more about Karina and her lit mag.

Allison Field Bell’s expansive and intimate poetry collection, ‘All That Blue’

‘… the word blue encompasses both the mental and physical spaces we inhabit.’

There’s something beautifully expansive about multi-genre writer Allison Field Bell‘s new poetry collection, All That Blue (now available from Finishing Line Press). The title itself evokes images of expansiveness: an unending dome of blue sky above, the glimmering cobalt of the ocean, the pristine turquoise of a county pond.

Juxtaposing these visions of expansiveness, though, are raw, intimate, and up-close expressions of life in all its messiness and unpredictability–the teeming life bubbling up from beneath. The 43 free-verse poems of All That Blue, Allison’s first collection of poetry, present this juxtaposition brilliantly.

Friday Five: Q&A with poet and priestess Molly Remer

‘Our lives are our poems. You’re already living yours right now, you just need to write it down.’

Thoreau had his Walden — that wilderness refuge where he sought inspiration and “to live deliberately.” Today’s National Poetry Month featured author, Molly Remer, also took to the woods for creative and spiritual inspiration, and with fruitful results. Unlike Thoreau and his transcendentalist brethren, however, Molly pursues the practice of “inscendance,” which she describes more in the Q&A below.

Molly Remer with a copy of her book *The Sacred Flame*

A prolific poet whose works are deeply rooted in goddess spirituality, nature, and the sacredness of everyday life, Molly is also a priestess and mystic. Living not far from me here in rural south-central Missouri, Molly holds Master of Social Work and Doctor of Ministry degrees and has authored 15 books, including Walking with Persephone, Whole and Holy, and 365 Days of Goddess. You can find her books and other works on her Etsy page.

Molly and her husband Mark also co-create Story Goddesses at Brigid’s Grove, producing original goddess sculptures and ceremony kits. She is the founder of the devotional experience #30DaysofGoddess. Her passion for celebrating small magic and everyday enchantment in life comes through in her poetry, which blends thealogy, nature, and practical priestessing, reflecting her deep connection to the divine feminine.

Read on to learn more about Molly Remer’s poetry, what inspires her, her thoughts on nature, mysticism, and inscendence, and the importance to writers of finding their “power spot.” Read on to the end to discover a poem from Molly that is quite relevant to the state of the world today.

Friday Five: Q&A with poet Agnes Vojta

‘You don’t need anybody’s permission to be a poet. You just need to love it.’

Continuing this blog’s celebration of women authors throughout Women’s History Month, and furthering my desire to use this platform to highlight other authors, I’m delighted today to share this email interview with Agnes Vojta, a poet who happens to live in my neck of the woods here in Missouri and who also happens to teach physics at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

A native of Germany, Agnes is the author of three books of poetry — Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams — all published by Spartan Press in 2019, 2020, and 2022, respectively. More recently, she and eight other poets from Missouri and Arkansas collaborated to create the anthology Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry, published in December 2022 by Cornerstone Press. Agnes also serves as an associate editor for Thimble Literary Magazine and hosts Poetry at the Pub, a local reading and open mic event. She and her husband, Thomas, a professor and chair of physics at Missouri S&T, are avid hikers and kayakers who share their passion for the outdoors and information about Ozarks trails and more at RollaHiking.info.