Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas: Without Reason

Bio and awards

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills. She attended Santa Clara University where she was an English major. She is an eight-time Pushcart nominee and a five-time Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of the following collections of poetry,: “Epistemology of an Odd Girl”, March Street Press, “Hasty Notes in No Particular Order”, “Letters Under the Banyan Tree” and “The Wanderer’s Dominion”, Aldrich Press, “Breakfast in Winter”, Flutter Press, along with several chapbooks, “Litany of Finger Prayers”, Pudding House Press, “Object of Desire”, Finishing Line Press, “A Thousand Tiny Sorrows”, March Street Press, “The Butterfly Room”, Big Table Books, “The Nightly Suicides”, Kattywompus Press, “Things I Can’t Remember to Forget”, Prolific Press, and the 2011 winning chapbook in The Red Ochre Chapbook Contest, “Before I Go to Sleep”, along with her latest collections slated for publication this year with Main Street Rag, “An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium“, “In the Making of Goodbyes”, Clare Songbird Press, “On the Edge of the Ethereal” Kelsay Books and "Alice in Ruby Slippers" Aldrich Press.

Her work has appeared in a wide variety of online, print magazines and anthologies, including: The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, Poets and Artists, War, Literature and the Arts. She is a poetry editor for The Orchards Poetry Journal and a member of the Sacramento group of poets called Writers on the Air. According to family lore she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Journals with poems forthcoming or already published

Carol Lynn's work has appeared or is forthcoming in the following journals: Oasis, Las Cruces Poets & Writers, Munyori Poetry Journal, Words on Paper, The Pregnant Moon Review Moondance, Dogzplot, The Verse Marauder, A Tender Touch, MSU Great Falls Literary Guild: Writings from the River, The Storyteller Magazine, Kingly Blue, Chanterelle's Notebook, The New Mirage Quarterly, Silenced Press, The Hiss Quarterly, Rattlesnake Press and Flutter, Ken*again, Oak Bend Review, Octaves Eight, Eskimopie (SPAM), The Battered Suitcase, The Boston Literary Review, Word Catalyst Magazine, Strong Verse, Crazy Days Anthology, Poet's Ink, Debris Magazine, Mississippi Crow, Poetry Friends, Madswirl, Poet's Letter, Shine, The Ghazal Page, The Lyric Magazine, Lucid Rhythms, Soundzine, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Hudson View, Skyline Magazine, The Scruffy Dog Review, Quill and Ink, Motel 58, The Cleave, The Toronto Quarterly, Gold Wake Press Anthology, Poetry Midwest, Thick with Conviction, Poetry for Suzanne, the Smoking Poet, Feathertale, Joyful!, Best Poem, decomP, Ardent!, Pirene's Fountain, Superficial Flesh, Pudding House # Nine series, BumbershootAnnual, The Dirty Napkin, The Wilderness House Literary Review, The Coachella Review, The Centrifugal Eye, Breadcrumb Scabs, My Light Magazine, The Houston Literary Review, A Stray Branch, Past Simple,The Westward Quarterly, The Northwest Literary Review, Toasted Cheese, Writer’s Bloc Rutgers, The Grey Sparrow, OVS, The Foundling Review, Leaf Garden Press, Decompression, Splash of Red, Umbrella, Lilith, The Legendary, Saw Palm, Contemporary American Voices, Tyst 3 Asphodel Madness, Deuce Coup, Eat a Peach, Shoots and Vines, Tipton, Foliate Oak, Victorian Violet Press, Full of Crow, Able Muse, Eat a Peach, Virgoray Press, Sublte Tea, Pig in a Poke, Medulla, The Rusty Truck, Capers Poetry Journal, Poets and Artists, Red River Review, Puffin Circus, Verses Wisconsin, Red Orche Poetry, Thrush, Poetry Super Highway, YJHM, Yes Poetry, Red Fez, New Mirage Journal, Touch, the Journal of Healing, Mused, Bella Online, Vox Poetica, Eunonia Revew, Subliminal Interioers, Bluestem, Eye to the Telescope, Dead Mule Poetry, quarrtsiluni, Raintown Review, Curio, Trigggerfish, War, Literature & the Arts, Circa, Big River Poetry Review, Angle, The Scrambler, Poetry Quarterly. Fwriction Poetry Review, The Light Left Behind, Dead Flowers, Rag Poetry, Vayavya, The Blue Hour , The Milo Review, The Society of Classical Poets, Blue Fifth Revew, Ariadne's Thread, Scapegoat, Waterhouse Review, The Moon, Sassafras. East Coast Literary Review, Literary Orphans, Hermeneutic Chaos. Sunlit, Leaves of Ink, Cliturature, Communion, Leaves of Ink, here/there poetry journal, Far Enough East Poetry, Broad River Review, Gravel, Five Poetry, Knot Journal, New Poetry, Crack the Spine, Mother's Always Write, The Magnolia Review, Yellow Chair Review, Corvus Review, Olive Press, Burningword Literary Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig, Lost Towers Anthology, The Crucible, The Tower Poetry Journal, Black Napkin Press, Memory House Magazine ( U of Chicago), Better than Starbucks, Words Dance, Cahoodaloodaling, The Orchards, The Peacock Journal, Not Very Quiet, Weasel Press, The Same, Local Gems Press 13 Days of Halloween, The Bookend's Review, Chiron Review, Ginosko Literary Review, Paddock Review and Sacramento Voices

( Pushcart nomination from Joyful!)

Because in the midst of a rainstorm
a tree can be halved by lightning
and spare one survivor between Heaven
and home, and sometimes water

can flow from the tub, seep though
a floor of another man’s ceiling
who’s thankful for rain when his
dwelling is parched, and because

speech is occasionally slurred from
the onset of illness rather than gin
proven by doctors in search of a cure
and sometimes a woman will die

in childbirth before the infant is placed
on her belly, for the joy of life
and being a mother. Because of this
I’ll write you a poem, imagine you

reading this hodgepodge of lines,
with a need for hope and hands raised
high, for the craving of fingers wrap
around fingers, connecting souls

in a manmade steeple. Because
of this I’ll write you a poem and a poem
and a poem, until we know all that we
don’t; until we embrace all that we aren’t,

until we are in awe of the universe
and forever united within these words.