Lorraine Henrie Lins

Lorraine Henrie Lins is a former Jersey girl who confesses that her first poetic love was Bruce Springsteen. Her full-length collection entitled, All the Stars Blown to One Side of The Sky  (Virtual Artists Collective, 2014) is a book that speaks to the universal issues of joy and sorrow, grief and laughter, and are born from the particulars of the author’s locales and daily living.   Additionally, she is the author of two chapbooks with Finishing Line Press, I Called It Swimming  (2011) and  Delaying Balance  (2013).   Lins’ tender and generous poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Mudfish 16, Transcendent Visions and, Eating Her Wedding Dress, along with several online journals and collections.

In 2010, Lins was named the Bucks County Pennsylvania Poet Laureate, and prior, had the honor of winning The Penland Prize for Poetry. Lins is presently at work revising her latest collection while working as a visiting poet to schools and mentoring young writers. Born and raised in the suburbs of Central New Jersey, she now resides in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her family and several dogs.  Poetry, she believes, is the thing that stalls her in the moment and keeps her from getting too far ahead of her living.

 

Artistic Statement:

As a writer, I find myself struggling with the idea of labeling my body of work. I consider my style of writing to be lyrical and narrative, one that straddles the margins of elegy and Haiku.  I am a fan of working the poem until the detail is so honed, so specific, that the reader has no choice but to see the vision through my eyes; it’s not uncommon for me to relish the details of any given memory or moment at great length. I trust my ear, though I am one to lean to other poets and mentors for feedback, if only for a grounding tether.  I believe the writer must learn to trust her voice, hear the melody of each line so that the truest form of the poem can be discovered.  Write. Edit. Write. Repeat.