Brick Road Poetry Press

poetry made to edify

The mission of Brick Road Poetry Press is to publish and promote poetry that entertains, amuses, edifies, and surprises a wide audience of appreciative readers.  We are not qualified to judge who deserves to be published, so we concentrate on publishing what we enjoy. Our preference is for poetry geared toward dramatizing the human experience in language rich with sensory image and metaphor, recognizing that poetry can be, at one and the same time, both familiar as the perspiration of daily labor and as outrageous as a carnival sideshow.

About Susan J. Erickson author of Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine

 
Susan J. Erickson

Susan J. Erickson

Susan J. Erickson happened on poetry.  After vowing to stop talking about writing a long-intended mystery novel, she enrolled in a poetry correspondence course offered by Western Washington University, reasoning that even an alternate genre would stimulate writing.  It did.  That course led to others and eventually to this book, Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine, the winner of the Brick Road Poetry Prize.  Poetry is now her genre of choice.

Susan grew up in the Midwest in a Garrison Keillor setting.  She attended the University of Minnesota, earning a B.S. and M.S.  She now lives in Bellingham, Washington, and marvels at living on the edge of the sea under the looming presence of an active volcano.

Erickson speaks to the decisions women make in life, how they live with those decisions and the justifications offered for their behavior.  She also explores how physical beauty can impact a person’s life.  Even though poems in this volume are in the voice of other women, Susan acknowledges that they sometimes reflect her own life experiences as well.  The poems in Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine give voice to women both well and little known, illuminating moments in their lives that dramatize the inheritance of silence many women still face.  Poems from the series appear in 2River View, Crab Creek Review, Museum of Americana, The Fourth River, The James Franco Review, The Tishman Review and in anthologies such as Till The Tide:  An Anthology of Mermaid Poetry.   

Erickson is also a collage artist and has created a unique series of cards using postage stamp images of the women represented in her poems.

Egress Studio Press published her chapbook, The Art of Departure. Susan helped establish the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Walk and Contest in Whatcom County and has served on its committee since its inception in 2006.  Visit her at www.susanjerickson.com.

 

 Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine here!