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Short Stories / Fiction:

SLICE MAGAZINE
“THE LAND OF THE SIBILANTS”
THE LITERARY REVIEW
“HONEY ALONE WOULD DO IT”
TAMPA REVIEW
“REVEALING THE FACE”
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
“THREE FISH”
HOBART
“TO THE MAN WITH THE SYNTHESIZED VOICE”
MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
“SWIMMER”

Poetry:

The Wreck of Birds

Rebecca Givens Rolland embraces an assimilation of internal feeling and thought with circumstances of the natural world and the conflicts and triumphs of our human endeavors. Here, we discover a language that seeks to at once replicate and transcend experiences of loss and disaster, and together with the poet ”we hope that such bold fates will not forget us.” Even at the speaker’s most vulnerable moments, when ”Each word we d spoken / scowls back, mirrored in barrels of wind” these personal poems insist on renewal. With daring honesty and formal skill, The Wreck of Birds achieves a revelatory otherness what Keats called the ”soul-making task” of poetry. — Walter E. Butts, 2009-2014 New Hampshire Poet Laureate

Book Review: https://pionline.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/book-review-of-the-wreck-of-birds-by-rebecca-givens-rolland/

Amazon.com
The Wreck of Birds

Chapbook: The Vine of Somewhere, 2017

Liquids “create indeterminate forms at the surface… that are never absolutes”

How can distance increase, entice hundreds of miles? More the girl chases, more messages face backward, till she’s left only

militancy, marching-music, wind. Sputtering, she knocks breath’s buttons: jackets thread stitches, spin hooks. Itinerant, pooled glass transmits message; what about the ever-counting child? Scholar might teethe

self from trouble, yet ruin mud-spilled fields. To speak, she raps throat, clears borders: mouth swooning (cautious, inked)

she dives. Bad weather at least offers solace: clouds,

cumulus, flattened, press workhorse, then

good shepherd, on her tongue—

Dulcet
The Vine of Somewhere

Chapbook: On the Refusal to Speak, 2012

Text Message

I planted a microphone in the bush, and the bush
sang. No burning, just a muted internal

hum. Floodwaters sloshed by to say hello,
proffering an upsurge of bulbs. Scarlet,

azalea, do-not-forget-my-name. No
gardener, I keeled them up in clumps. Almost

no effort to crush them, just a squeeze;
I wouldn’t say I was sorry to blacken their

lines. Next time, I’ll bring jam and a bucket
of daisies: singe me, I’ll wager white petals sneer.

Dulcet
On The Refusal To Speak

Individual Poems

“Presence,” in 236 Magazine (Boston University)
http://www.bu.edu/236magazine/past-issues/current-issue-2/poetry-rebecca-givens-rolland/

Bring on the unborn, the as-yet-

unreleased—let the sand-trap

convex, turn mechanism

at the throat’s base, beating

gold with the threat of steeped

branches, bleating over and

over tired till the hash

of rain no longer treads

lightly, thrushes hunger

fallowly abroad, chest whips

tree-long, under its own

houses, its burnished hair—

“Colony,” in Carte Blanche
http://carte-blanche.org/articles/colony/

As if first inscriptions were enough, slate-riven water

I plunged my face

in. I thought I’d drown. What survival conceals itself

in tunnels, what contingencies linger

underground.

“The Underworld in Springtime” in Switchback
http://www.swback.com/issues/015/underworld-springtime.html

After so much exactness – after

one angle of wind that

shivers, lashes metal filings till

underlying rust flattens

out – after it no longer contains

any motion, wheels

of tendons threaten to unwind, dissolve

in dawdling ash as ship-

wrecks settle, elsewhere, on the inattentive

floor—

Selected Journal Publications

Commentary from North American Review: ““Three Fish” by R. G. Rolland explores the intersection between artistic potential and desire. The stunning art for this piece is from newcomer Matt Manley and captures the story’s discord.

FICTION:

  • “Seaweed Wasn’t the Right Color” in Green Hills Literary Lantern (forthcoming)
  • “Three Fish” in North American Review (2016)
  • “Honey Alone Would Do It” in The Literary Review (2015) pdf
  • “The Land of Sibilants” in Slice Magazine (2014)
  • “Revealing the Face” in Tampa Review Online (2014)
  • “To the Man with the Synthesized Voice,” Hobart (2014)
  • “In the Hospital, Just Before the Explosion” in Literary Orphans (2013)
  • “We Did at First See Justice” in J Journal (2011)

POETRY:

  • “Narrative of the Caveman Nearing Light” in Thrush Poetry Journal (2017)
  • “After the Marriage but Before the Fire” in Stirring (2017)
  • “In Each Dream Defeat” in Leveler (2017)
  • “Dream of Jaundice” in Connotation Press (2017)
  • “Open, Near” in District Lit (2016)
  • “Goldenrod” in Contemporary Verse 2 (2016)
  • “Ode to S., Now Three” in Rhino (2016)
  • “Birth Story” and “Song of the Ninth Month” in Zone 3 (2016)
  • “Announcing” and “The Tiny Feat” in diode (2015)
  • “Rook-Edge” in Oxford Poetry (2015)
  • “Two in Winter” in Barrow Street (2015)
  • “Dream of the Only Child” in Denver Quarterly (2014)
  • “Lean Times” and “Octagon” in DMQ Review (2014)
  • “This Eye and That” in Bat City Review (2014)
  • “In the Night Mirror” in Hawaii Pacific Review (2014)
  • “Presence” and “Storm” in The Kenyon Review (2013)
  • “This Quantity of Light” in Fourteen Hills (2013)
  • “Colony” in Carte Blanche (2013)
  • “After Visiting Hours” in Thrush Poetry Journal (2013)
  • “In the Hotel Lobby” in Verse Wisconsin (2013)
  • “The Wreck of Birds” in Poet’s Market (2013)
  • “Waystation for the Secretly Claustrophobic,” “Near the Beachhead,” and “A Hair Beyond” in Hotel Amerika (2013)
  • “From the Book of Leavening” in Silk Road (2012)
  • “Song for Two Voices” in Crab Creek Review (2012)
  • “The Underworld in Springtime” in Switchback (2012)
  • “Crumbs” in the Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review (2012)
  • “Custody” in Field (2012)
  • “Five Little Lizards” in Denver Quarterly (2011)
  • “Mistaken for Ice, Air” in Colorado Review (2011)
  • Selected Poems in pdf

GRANTS AND AWARDS:

  • FAWC Esther Kahn Fellowship, 2013
  • Semi-finalist, Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, 2013
  • Finalist, Sante Fe Writers’ Project, 2013
  • May Sarton New Hampshire First Book Prize, 2011
  • Dana Award for Short Fiction, 2011
  • Harvard University Roy E. Larsen Fellowship, 2009
  • Semifinalist, Alice James Book, Kinreth Gensler First Book Award, 2008
  • Finalist, Iowa Review Award for Poetry, 2007
  • Finishing Line Press, chapbook accepted for publication, 2007
  • Winner, Editor’s Select, 42 Opus, 2006
  • Athens College Teaching Fellowship, 2005
  • Academy of American Poets Award, Boston University, 2004
  • National Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, 2003-4
  • Kilborne Memorial Fellowship for Independent Research, 2002
  • Yale University Prizes: Clapp Fellowship for Poetry, Bergen Prize for Poetry, Veech Prize for Fiction
  • First place, Dana Award for Poetry

READINGS AND WORKSHOPS:

  • Reader, Blacksmith Poetry House; Cambridge, MA
  • Featured Reader, Grub Street Instructor Showcase; Boston, MA
  • Workshop Leader; Lowell and Boston, MA

If you’re interested in talking with Rebecca about speaking or consulting projects, please contact her.

Contact Rebecca

Copyright 2020 Rebecca Givens Rolland. All Rights Reserved.
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Rebecca Givens Rolland