Debut Poetry Collection, Blood Sisters
Poignant and tough, the poems in Jenifer DeBellis’ Blood Sisters remind us of the fierce loyalties and eroticism that fuel childhood and adolescence while at the same time celebrating the grace and resilience with which her speaker survives those conflicts. Unflinchingly honest, surprisingly tender, the memorable language and vitality of Blood Sisters will reverberate long after you have finished this book. —Kathleen Aguero, author After That
The characters and stories within Blood Sisters hold a familiarity that is as resonant as that song you once heard—the one you remember the melody to and have been searching for ever since. These lyrical coming-of-age narratives follow the girl next door through move after move, new school after new school. In her quest to find personal truths and understand the human condition, this collection’s speaker retraces experiences that shaped her relational, sociopolitical, and sexuality views.
As the older self tells her younger self in the first poem in the collection, “Little Girl,”
You will not find love
as the life of the party, will not
stop the kids with their sticks
from bashing your chest
until your innocence breaks free & settles
at your feet like piñata candy.
Make
no mistake, though. These stories are free of self-pity and melodrama. The
memories within chronicle a girl’s journey to survive and surpass the working
class struggles that too often become generational. Follow this girl through personal
transgressions, misguided moments, and near defeats and witness her rise above
circumstances to that place of self-realization where her identity, her voice, and
her desire await.
Published Works & Awards
BOOK-LENGTH WORKS
Poetry collection, forthcoming, Main Street Rag, Summer 2018: Blood Sisters.
INDIVIDUAL WORKS
Featured poetry, Uproot Magazine, Spring 2018, and commissioned by Oakland University’s Bridging the Gaps: Guitars for Social Justice Project: “Hungry.”
2nd place for prose, Oakland University 2018 Flash Fiction Contest, Alum/Faculty/Staff category: "Held Together by a Safety Pin: A Broken Story."
Finalist for prose, Oakland University 2018 Creative Nonfiction Contest, Alum/Faculty/Staff category: "New Skin."
2018 Pushcart Prize Nominee for featured audio poetry, Golden Walkman Magazine, and award winner in the 2017 Springfed Arts Poetry Contest, Summer 2017: “Say You Walk Away.”
Featured poetry, forthcoming, The Charleston Anvil, Winter 2017/2018 issue: “Minor Characters: A Graphic Narrative.”
Featured poetry, Oakland English Channel, published by Oakland University English Department. Winner of 2017 Alum/Faculty/Staff Ekphrasis Poetry Contest: “unfinished business (for Degas).”
Featured poetry, Tranquility Anthology, published by Kind of a Hurricane Press. Fall/Winter 2016: “Diurnal,” “Oak,” and “A Time To Be Silent.”
Featured poetry, East Bay Review, No. 8, "Crossroads."
Featured prose, Flash Fiction Magazine, May 2016, "The Floating World."
Featured poetry, Mom Egg Review, Volume 14, Spring 2016: "The Detroit Institute of Art."
Featured poetry, Rat's Ass Review, Spring 2016: “Beneath the Surface,” “Broken Promises,” and “Legacy.” Fall 2015, Volume 3, Issue 2: “Legacy.”
Featured poetry, Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects, Fall 2015: “The Natural Man.”
Featured poetry, Zoomorphic, Winter 2016: “illume.”
Featured poetry, Solstice Literary Magazine. Fall 2015: “Asylum.”
Featured poetry, Amygdala, October 2015. “interior rooms” and "Welcome Home.”
Featured prose, Literary Orphan, October 2015: “Stubborn Silence.”
Featured poetry, Sliver of Stone, October 2015: “The View from Room 102.”
Featured poetry, The Good Men Project, August 2015: “Season of Renewal.”
Featured poetry, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, June 2015: selection of three haiku.
Featured poetry, Undertow Tanka Review, October 2014, Issue 2: collection of nine tanka.
Featured poetry, the Aurorean. Fall/Winter 2014 issue: “Answer the Door.” Spring/Summer 2013 issue:
“Empty Box” and “Faded Scar.” July 2013 Unrorean
Broadsheet:
“Eyes of Verdigris.”
Featured poetry, Festival Writer, Issue 2:6, July 2014: “Picking Wallflowers” and “Hush Lil’ Baby.”
Featured prose, Solstice Literary Magazine. Spring 2014: “Before You Can Change Your Mind.”
Featured poetry, the Vault: Soul Fountain. Vol. 45, Spring 2013: “Religion Romanticized”; Vol. 46, Fall 2013: “Lost Chronicle: genX².”
Featured poetry, The Good
Stuff. Summer 2013: “Breasts, Orgasms, and Great
Shoes.”
Featured poetry and prose, the OU Department of English Website and Newsletter. April 2013: “Lullaby,” June 2012: “An American Treasure: A Michigan Gem” and “Peep Show, a Tango.”
Featured poetry, Wayne Literary Review. Spring 2013: “Book of rElevation” and “Scrolls of Exodus.”
Featured poetry, Echo Cognitio. Winter 2013: “Alchemy: Insularity” and “Dusted Darkness.”
Featured prose, Rose Red Review. December 2012: “Tail of a Turtledove.”
Featured poetry and prose, Oakland Journal. Fall 2012: “Catharsis: Soul’s Seasonal Lament,” “Peep Show, a
Tango,” and “The Things We Buried.”
Featured poetry, BAC Street Journal. Spring 2012 edition: “Enlightenment.” Fall 2010 edition: “Table for One.”
Spring 2010 edition: “Alone Space in this Cold Place.”
Featured writing and art: Pink Panther Magazine, an international women’s online and print publication.
- March 2018, Volume 9, Number 1
- September 2017, Volume 8, Number 2
- March
2017, Volume 8, Number 1
- September 2016, Issue 25
- March 2016, Issue 24
- September 2015, Issue 23
- March 2015, Issue 22
- September 2014, Issue 21
- March 2014, Issue 20
- September 2013, Issue 19
- December 2012, Issue 18
- September 2012, Executive Editor, Issue 17
- June
2012, Co-Editor, Issue 16
- February 2012, Co-Editor, Issue 15
- November 2011, Executive Editor, Issue 14
- July
2011, Co-Editor, Issue 13
- April 2011, Poetry Editor, Issue 12
- January
2011, Poetry Editor, Issue 11
STUDENT/STUDENT-FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
Featured poetry and prose, Swallow the Moon. Spring 2012: “Beautiful Baptism” and “Where I’m From.”
Spring 2011: “Lover’s Notes . . . ,” “More than One Word Could Contain,” and “Slipping through the Cracks.”
Featured writing and art: Half Book, A Macomb Guild of Writers and Macomb Community College publication.
Works featured in Sticks and Stones, 2011; Everything but the Kitchen Sink, 2010; The House Was Haunted,2010; The Altered ‘Alf Book, 2010; Holiday Half Book, 2009; and The Haunted Half Book, 2009.
About the Author
Metro Detroit Freelance Writer Jenifer DeBellis's debut micro-memoir in verse, Blood Sisters, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag (2018). She's Pink Panther Magazine’s executive editor and directs the Detroit Writers' Guild. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Solstice of Pine Manor College. A former writer-in-residence for the Meadow Brook Writing Project, she facilitates workshops for Oakland University’s MBWP Writing Camps. JDB teaches writing and literature for Saginaw Valley State University and Macomb Community College. When she's not editing or writing for others, she sneaks in time for her own craft, which was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize and appears in AWP's Festival Writer, the Good Men Project, Literary Orphans, Sliver of Stone, Solstice Literary Magazine, and other fine journals.
JDB enjoys country life with her life-partner and husband, Nick, and their three daughters. When she's not chasing down random things for them or simply chasing away the boys, you might spot her running along the back roads of her small town.