manifesting love & light

Sheree La Puma is an award-winning writer whose personal essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Penn Review, American Journal of Poetry, WSQ, Chiron Review, SRPR, The Rumpus, Plainsongs, and I-70 Review, among others. Her poetry was recently nominated for Best of The Net and two Pushcarts. Her micro-chapbook, ‘The Politics of Love,’ was published in August by Ghost City Press. She has a new chapbook, ‘Broken: Do Not Use,’ recently released with Main Street Rag Publishing. She received an MFA in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts and taught poetry to former gang members.

 

video

 

              

 

books

• 2021 – “Broken: Do Not Use,” Chapbook, Main Street Rag Press
• 2020 – “The Politics of Love,” Micro-Chapbook, Ghost City Press

 

selected poetry

 

• 2023 – “El Nino Is Here” Nominated for a Pushcart. The Hollins Critic
• 2023 – “I Am Someone Who Is Easily Forgotten,” Inlandia
• 2023 – “Sunset Sound Meditation,” Inlandia
• 2023 – “When All Things Feel Like A Folding Screen,” Inlandia
• 2023 – “When I Was Wild – Think Life Of The Party,” Inlandia
• 2023 – “A Body Of Work,” Inlandia
• 2023 – “If You Skipped One Coffee A Day,” Santa Fe Literary Review
• 2023 – “Because I’m Lonely – I Want To Know The Sound of Love Returning,” Glassworks
• 2023 – “This Is Bullshit, I Say To Myself,” Slipstream Magazine
• 2023 – “A Few Days After She Fled,” Harpur Palate Literary Journal
• 2023 – “Hierarchies Of Sound,” Poetry Salzburg (Forthcoming)
• 2023 – “Family Weekend – Interlochen Arts Academy,” Saranac Review
• 2023 – “Traffic Collision Involving Structure,” Salt Hill Journal
• 2022 – “On Losing My Humanity,” “How To Clean A Burnt Pot,” Border Arts: Beyond the Barriers – An Anthology, The Raving Press
• 2022 – “Joe Is Making Good Money At The Brokerage,” Burningword Literary Magazine
• 2022 – “We Ruined You,” “Poem To A Body Gone Rogue,” Moria Magazine
• 2022 – “Si, Birria,” Sugar House Review, Forthcoming
• 2022 – “Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2022 – Shortlist”
• 2022 – “the world, a world like this,” FERAL A Journal of Poetry & Art
• 2022 – “2 Poems,” Dash Poetry
• 2022 – “This Is My Brain Dully Sleeping,” New Plains Review
• 2022 –  “3 Poems,” Pomona Valley Review
• 2022 – “2 poems,” Northridge Review
• 2022 – “Those That Empty Into It,” San Pedro River Review
• 2022 – “I Have Come to Expect Grief Like the Seasons,” Catamaran Literary Reader
• 2022 – “When The Marriage Was Over,” The South Carolina Review
• 2022 – “A Brief History of Fences,” ¡Pa’lante!
• 2022 – “Each Life A Stream,” Split Rock Review
• 2021 – “El Niño Is Here,” The Hollins Critic
• 2021 – “Hello Suffering,” Book of Matches
• 2021 – “Tournesol,” Cloudbank, Forthcoming May 2022
• 2021 –  Nominated for Best of The Net “Sole Survivor,” Orange Blossom Review
• 2021 – “Artifacts,” The Maine Review
• 2021 – “Bad Poem/Bad Mother,” Stand Magazine, University of Leeds
• 2021 – “When You Pick Up The World & Hand It To Your Daughter,” South 85 Journal, Converse College
• 2021 – “Driftless,” Rash Awards (Finalist) – Broad River Review
• 2021 – “Four Poems,” – Adelaide Literary Journal
• 2021 – “Something I Hate,” 2River View
• 2021 – “Get Ready For Unwelcome Friends,” Twelve Mile Review
• 2021 – “The Love That Comes & Goes,” The Stonecoast Review, University of Southern Maine,
• 2021 – “Therapy,” Finalist in the American Writers Review Contest on Turmoil & Recovery
• 2021 – “Suddenly Winter,” Poetry, New York Quarterly.
• 2021 – “Before Death; there is no justice,” Dogwood, A Journal of Poetry and Prose
• 2021 – “Memories of Flight,” Runner Up in the Juxtaprose Poetry Prize 2020
• 2021 – “Dear Katie,” Free State Review
• 2021 – “The Phone Call, “The MacGuffin
• 2021 – “Woman/Body/Word,” The Penn Review
• 2021 – “The Girl’s Name Is Elizabeth,” Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry
• 2020 – “Tragedy,” Panoply: A Literary Zine
• 2020 – “Sole Survivor,” Orange Blossom Review, Nominated for a Pushcart
• 2020 – “Three Cows Gone Missing,” Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art.
• 2020 – “I Let Go,” Redivider Journal – Emerson College.
• 2020 – “At First, I Wanted To Marry Jesus,” SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review)
• 2020 – “There Are Many Ways To Say I Miss You,” San Pedro River Review
• 2020 – “When Dreams Betray,” Poetry Contest Finalist, River Heron Review.
• 2020 – “Oliva Jade Won’t Return To USC,” Sheila Na Gig Online Contest.
• 2020 – “i am left collecting bones,” “OUTSIDE/R,” Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art. 
• 2020 – “Equanimity/Lost,” The American Journal of Poetry.
• 2020 – “Bad Poem/Bad Mother,” Aji Magazine. 
• 2020 – “the sacred and the unfamiliar,” and “A Clear And Present Danger,” The William and Mary Review, College of William and Mary.
• 2020 – “After Cotillion,” Poetry, Havik: The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature.
• 2020 – “Returning to Silence,” “minimal acts of devotion,” and “Super Glued to a Hamster Wheel of Suffering,” Poetry, SETU 2020 WESTERN VOICES. 
• 2020 – “The Year Without Meaning,” The Northridge Review,
• 2020 – “Which Country Should We Bomb Today,” Into The Void Magazine.
• 2020 – “I.II.MMXX Not Even The White House Knows The Body Count,” & “The Ones That Walk Away” The Blue Nib, Print Edition, Ireland.
• 2020 – “Active Shooter,” “To My Past Lovers,” Pidgeonholes: Fearless Literature.
• 2020 – “The Ghost of Mother,” “Little Bird,” “When Talking With An Ex-Husband Who Has Died.” The Raw Art Review – Finalist in The Doug Draime Prize for Poetry.
• 2020 – “A Mother With Signs of Dementia,” “I Dream of Summer With My Dead Daughter,” Finalists in the 2020 American Writers Review Contest.
• 2020 – Poetry,  Rumble Fish Quarterly – Spring Issue.
• 2020 – “To My Daughter; on the death of her father,” Louisiana Literature.
• 2020 – “Self-Portrait As A Mourning Dove,” South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), Feb Issue.
• 2020 – “Breaking Apart,” Poets Reading The News.
• 2020 – “House Bolting,” Chiron Review (BLR).
• 2020 – “Old White Men & A Skirt Too Far Above The Knees,” The Rumpus.
• 2020 – “As Sea Levels Rise and Fall,” “Daughter: the sin that lives on my tongue,” “Anatomy of Melancholy,” “Lessons from an Ordinary Life,” The North Dakota Review.
• 2020 – “Drowned, California,” The Tusculum Review,  Fall 2020 issue.
• 2020 – “High School Boyfriends,” Sierra Nevada Review.
• 2020 – “Reimagining End of Life,” The Mojave River Review.
• 2020 – “all that we love,” Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review – Issue 51.
• 2020 – “The Politics of Love and Other Invisible Structures,” WSQ – Women Studies Quarterly – The Feminist Press – CUNY 50th anniversary. WSQ: Inheritance Issue.
• 2020  – “Crimson Blooms,” “This Is A Test,” January Review. 
• 2020 – “A Daughter Leaves To College & Never Returns.”  &  “i love you i love you not, things we say with hope,” Levee Magazine – Issue 04, Spring of 2020
• 2020 – “January 25th – Any Year,” Gyroscope Review. 
• 2020 – “Death by Cholera in 4 Movements,” Reprint, Better Than Starbucks.
• 2019 – “Clarity” & “Slaughter,” COG – Cogswell College, San Jose, CA.
• 2019 – “Spring Mourning; after the plane crash,” Swwim Every Day. 
• 2019 – “An Olive Tree In Summer,” Sheila-Na-Gig online, September Issue.
• 2019 – “Joan of California,” Juxtaprose Literary Magazine. 
• 2019 – “Young Boy Trying To Be A Pirate,” Rise Up Review, Summer Issue.
• 2019 – “Sunset Beach,” Rust + Moth, Autumn 2019 issue.
• 2019 – “Two Daughters” River Heron Review, August, Issue 22.
• 2019 – “Joe,” Poetry – Prole Books (UK) print.
• 2019 – “Weep,” “Rise Up: The End is Coming,” “Still 5.” Raw Art Review Spring 2019.
• 2019 – “Intense Black Smoke” Main Street Rag, Summer 2019.
• 2019 – “Milk Bomb” Burningword Literary Journal, July 5th Issue 91.
• 2019 – “Life Is Not A Lullaby,” “Until Death Do Us Part.” Levee Magazine, Spring Issue.
• 2019 – “What You Gain When You Lose” Gasher Journal, Spring Issue.
• 2019 – “place of death: field.” Plainsongs -Hastings CollegePress, Summer Edition.
• 2019 – “Death By Cholera in 4 Movements,” Open: Journal of Arts & Letters.
• 2019 – “To An Absent Daughter; There’s a Lot of Anger Here, The Penmen Review.
• 2019 – “Life In Seconds, with Gaps, Trigger Warning To A Woman Poet, Money, Rescue Me From Truth, Take The Free Turkey, Edges, Texas A&M University Kingsville Tapestry Journal.
• 2019 – “Little Bird”  I-70 Review
• 2019 – “I Dreamt We Quarreled,” The Inflectionist Review.
• 2019 – “The Politics of Love and Other Invisible Structures,” Burningword Literary Journal.
• 2019 – “And then you die having loved me first,” “When Talking with An Ex-Husband, Who Has Died.” Westwind Literary Journal (UCLA). 
• 2019 –  “California Dreamin,‘ The Rye Whiskey Review.
• 2018 – “To the absent, the dead, the estranged: I am Mother,” Best of 2018, Burningword Literary Journal
• 2018 – “To the absent, the dead, the estranged: I am Mother” Burningword Literary Journal, Issue 88.
• 2013 – “Fossilize Remains of The Day,” “I Believed in Santa Claus,” “One Way or Another,” The Blue Hour Magazine
• 2013 – “Whoredom,” Mad Swirl
• 2011 – “The Day After,” Mad Swirl
• 2011 – “Clean Sheets,” Mad Swirl
• 2010 – “Hot’n Spicy,”  Mad Swirl
• 2010 – “Networks,” Mad Swirl

 

selected prose

 

• 2020 – “Learning To Swim,” CNF, Red Coyote, The Vermillion Literary Project (VLP) – University of South Dakota.
• 2020 – “The Dark In Me,” “Tiny Window,” Poetry – War, Literature & the Arts: an international journal of the humanities, Department of English & Fine Arts, United States Air Force Academy.
• 2020 – “The Neighbors,” Memoir, Psaltery & Lyre.
• 2020 – “The Moment of Separation,” Creative Non-Fiction, Ovunque Siamo.
• 2019 – “Dialog With An Absent Husband,” Creative Non-Fiction, Cleaning Up Glitter – A Literary Journal.
• 2019 – “The Pumpkin Patch,” Fiction, Two Sisters Writing & Publishing, Contest Winner. Online & Anthology.
• 2019 – “A Predator,” Memoir, Feminism & Religion.
• 2019 – “Burrowing,” Fiction, Fall Issue, Ginosko Literary Review.
• 2019 – “Blighted Son” Short Fiction, Scarlet Leaf Review.
• 2019 – “Scent-i-mental Over You” Memoir, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana 30.1, celebrating 30 years of VIA and Bordighera Press.
• 2019 – “Snap” Short Story, PacificREVIEW, Annual Publication
• 2019 – “The Man Behind the Curtain,” Memoir, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine.
• 2018 – “So It Goes,” Memoir, The London Reader #MeToo Issue
• 2018 – “The Bionic Shopping Review,” Nonfiction, The Charleston Anvil
• 2018 – “The Desert” Fiction, Gravel Literary Journal
• 2018 – “The Writer,” Micro Fiction – Crack the Spine
• 2018 – “Assumptions,” Flash Fiction, July, 5th Issue of Burningword Literary Journal 2018
• 2017 – “Breaking Apart”, Nonfiction Essay, ESME’s Annual Showcase Awards, 2^nd Place
• 2013 – “Their House Is Not A Home,” Short Fiction, Mad Swirl
• 2012 – “The Shell of Mariette,” Short Fiction, Mad Swirl

 

in anthology

 

• 2021 – “Which Country Should We Bomb Today,” Sh!t Men Say to Me: A Poetry Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity, Moon Tide Press 
• 2021 – “She says that i should call my mother,” Aunt Flo Project Anthology. Forthcoming
• 2020 – “The Transitory Nature of Happiness,” Soliloquies Anthology, Concordia University – Montreal.
• 2020 – “A California Love Song,” Raven Chronicles: Take a Stand: Art Against Hate Anthology.
• 2019 – “Anatomy of Grief,” “Boot Print,” & “the lost demi-god children,” Animal Heart Press -Womxn’s Anthology.
• 2019 – “Ode to Mother” & “Fragments of Mother” Anthology – Concrete Mist Press.
• 2019 – “The Ghost of Mother,” Buddha Alien Press, Anthology, That One Time Alien Buddha Got So High.

 

other published works.

 

• 2018 – “So It Goes,” Memoir, Collaborative Performance Piece with Linda Rife/The Euler String Quartet
• 2019 – “The Sounds, The Stories, Podcast” Nonfiction Essay
• Poetry for Up Against a Wall Mother
• Creative Non-Fiction, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine
• Various poetry for Mad Swirl over several years
• “The Vulture,” The Pub Magazine
• Edited Music Articles at the LA Weekly
• RAY BRADBURY FELLOWSHIP for SHORT STORIES,
• Double finalist for two different short stories in 2002.
• New Century Writer Awards
• NCWA Nominated in 2002 for the best essay on children’s literature in the CSUN program.
• I co-produced two spec television shows
• Various articles for local publications. Full list on request.

 

of note.

 

• 2022 – Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2022 – Shortlist
• 2021 – Nominated for Best of The Net “Sole Survivor,” Orange Blossom Review
• 2021 – Finalist in American Writers Review Contest Turmoil & Recover, Poetry – “Therapy.”
• 2021 – Runner up in the Dogwood Poetry Prize, “Before Death, there is no justice.”
• 2020 – Runner up in the Juxtaprose Poetry Prize for “Memories of Flight”
• 2020 – Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, “There Are Many Ways To Say I Miss You,” San Pedro River Review.
• 2020 – Nominated for Best of The Net “Self-Portrait As A Mourning Dove,” South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), Feb Issue.
• 2020 – Grant From PEN AMERICA
• Full-length Book of Poetry, Lessons From An Ordinary Life, Semi-Finalist – Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize.
• 2019 – Full-Length Book of Poetry, Naked With The Fan Running, Finalist – The Hillary Gravendyk Prize from Inlandia Institute
• 2018 – Composers Collective, Wrote a Performance Piece that was showcased in Orange, CA, and broadcast on The Brew Stories (Podcast)
• 2017 – Workshop with Writer Lidia Yuknavitch
• 2015 – Workshop with Poet Louise Mathias
• Wrote, produced, and directed a play “The Boy That Was All Used Up,” at the Road Theater Company in NoHo.
• Worked for the Community Arts Partnership, (CAP) as a Poetry Teacher for teens at St. Elmo Village, an artist-in-residence community in the inner city of Los Angeles.
• Board Member – The Lourdes Foundation