“Just Before Dawn,” “Sleep,” “Ship,” and “Spring” by Rafaella Del Bourgo appeared in Issue 46 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about the “Ship.”
During a long-ago trip through Pakistan, one of our group got malaria. “Ship” is my description of what her trip back from this village on the coast must have been like when she was so feverish.
What was the most difficult part of this particular piece(s)?
Trying to integrate the actual ride back on the camel with her hallucinations.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
I highly recommend Chloe Dalton’s memoir Raising Hare. It is beautifully written and quite touching. I liked the way form and content were both so quiet, like the hare.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I’d like to be able to chat with the poet Ellen Bass. She is an excellent writer but also very active in the community. If you are unfamiliar with her work, read “The Thing Is.”
What are you working on now? What’s next?
For the past several months I have been going through older work and revising. This process has reminded me of many poems I’d like to get out there which means being disciplined about submissions.
Our thanks to Rafaella for taking the time to answer a few questions and share this story. Read “Just Before Dawn,” “Sleep,” “Ship,” and “Spring” here.
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Rafaella Del Bourgo’s writing has appeared in Puerto Del Sol, Rattle,Oberon, Nimrod, andThe Bitter Oleander. She has won many awards including the League of Minnesota Poets Prize, the Grandmother Earth Poetry Award, the Paumonak Poetry Award, the Northern Colorado Writers first prize for poetry, and the New Millennium Prize for Poetry. She won the Mudfish Poetry Prize and was nominated for the third time for a Pushcart Prize. Her first full length poetry collection I Am Not Kissing You was published by Small Poetry Press. Her chapbook Inexplicable Business: Poems Domestic and Wild was published by Finishing Line Press. She won the Terry J. Cox Award for her full-length poetry manuscript which will be released by Regal House August 12, 2025. And finally, she just won the 2025 Allen Ginsberg Award for her poem, “Nightgown, 1960.” She lives in Berkeley with her husband.