LeAnn Bjerken
Author, Poet, Journalist
LeAnn Bjerken is a Midwest-based poet with an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. Her passion for writing is fueled by the connections made via storytelling and a desire to use words to capture emotions and evoke deep reflections.
Her debut poetry collection, Ordinary Omens, was published by The Poetry Box Press in September 2024. Her work has appeared in Miracle Magazine, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living Magazine, and online publications like Devilfish Review, The Artistic Muse, The Lake, Fox Adoption Magazine, and Plants & Poetry Journal.
Balancing her creative pursuits with life at home, LeAnn finds joy in the company of her husband, Steve, daughter, Eowyn, and their cat, Tikki.
New Release
Ordinary Omens
Released September 15, 2024
My debut poetry collection, Ordinary Omens was just released in September! It is a collection of poems that explore those moments in our lives that have connections to the extraordinary. Mystical vibes flow throughout, weaving together themes of nature and growth, love and motherhood, fear and faith, past and future. There's something for everyone in this magical collection.
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Ordinary Omens combines earthly beauty with cosmic magic. Each poem contains its own universe, paying tribute to our senses with detailed imagery, and at the same time, reaching out to the mysteries of the universe. The poetry touches the true and authentic inner longings of the readers and carries us toward deeper realms involving the intersection of our own personal language with a new voice from the Muse, the voice of LeAnn Bjerken. The reader will soar on the wings of pure poetry, poetry our world needs now more than ever.
Nila J. Webster, author of Remember Rain
and Songs of Wonder for the Night Sea Journey
Praise & Reviews
LeAnn Bjerken’s Ordinary Omens opens with a spell and then casts one. The speaker takes us from her birth through key moments in her life, focusing primarily on the experience of falling in love, and these ordinary experiences are made extraordinary through Bjerken’s surreal images. One of my favorite poems in this book, “Keep on Floating,” feels like a Marc Chagall painting in that it’s a real world made less and more real by being tilted sideways: I stay home to climb the walls with you. / We walk the ceiling / tripping in the door frames / stepping around lights. Reading this book feels like we’re in a world that is both familiar and new, made so by the magic of language and love.
Laura Read, author of But She Is Also Jane
LeAnn Bjerken’s Ordinary Omens reads like a book of rituals, potions, incantations, and talismans for conjuring the magic that only domesticity can make. With trusting intimacy and captivating sensuality, Bjerken traces the ecstatic, headlong cycles of desire and fulfillment from which enduring love is spun. Her poems remind us that, in our loving and loved bodies, we are of the same dirt as the earthworm and burrowing rabbit, the same air as the birds, the same water as the minnow born ready to swim and make a home in—and of—this world.
Jonathan Johnson, author of May Is an Island
Events & Appearances
Upcoming
TBD
Past events
Reading and Signing event. October 17th, 2024 at 6pm, Kaddatz Galleries, Fergus Falls, MN.
Reading and Signing event. October 5th, 2024 from 11am-1pm,
Cherry Street Books, Alexandria, MN
Reading and Signing event. September 28th, 2024 from 11am-12pm,
Fergusons Books & More, West Fargo, ND.