The reason the Bear River Writers’ Conference exists is to encourage new writing. It only makes sense that we do what we can to help some of that work find an audience. Here we’ve created a space for people who have been a part of the conference to share their writing with their colleagues and with any other reader who may stumble across it. We hope people enjoy the work and find it helpful with their own projects. Enter and have some fun!! ~Keith Taylor, Director
We are delighted to bring you Issue 3 of the Bear River Review. We use this on-line format as a way of getting the work around to its readers but perhaps at some point we will have an actual as well as a virtual journal. For those of you new to this site, the review is for writing that resulted from attendance at the Bear River Writers’ Conference. The writers began their work there—workshopped it there—were inspired there. And their writing inspires us. We thank you, our writers, for making Issue 3 possible and thank you, our readers, for entering this issue. Issues 1 and 2 are also excellent and available for you to peruse. Welcome to the BRR. Enjoy! ~Chris Lord, Editor
Lee Warner Brooks – Featured Writer for Issue 3 of the Bear River Review
Lee is a sonneteer and he excels in the form. We asked Lee why he writes sonnets, and he answered:
“Why sonnets? Because I’m challenged by Shakespeare’s collection of what Ron Rosenbaum has called (in The Shakespeare Wars) “fourteen-line humming machines of pleasure” (466), and then later, still striving to get it just right, “wicked little engines of pleasure” (474). Because ears attuned to the English language crave and catch hold of meter and rhyme, alliteration and assonance, as much today as they ever did. Because the human mind seeks out and values symmetry and balance—a face looking straight at us—and disregards and devalues asymmetry—a face looking to the side. And, of course, because sonnets are so short that even you, even now, have time to read one. Even two.”
Lee has a sonnet in the most recent The Iowa Review, and one in Light: A Quarterly of Light Verse, No. 54 (Autumn 2006). The working title of his sonnet collection is Charms Against the Dark. He is also a novelist, including: Greensward—Love across the race/money line on Detroit’s east side; Dana’s Rules—Real life and unlove at a corporate law firm in Detroit; Xuliss—Love in the land of sea monsters. Lee teaches writing at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and is the father of two teenagers and one 21-year-old. He has been a journal-keeper since May 1977. He attended the Bear River Writers’ Conference in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. We are honored to present six of his superb sonnets here.
Note: The work on this site is used with the permission of the authors, who retain all copyright to their own material.
