About Paola Bruni
Paola Bruni is originally from San Francisco and now lives in Aptos, California by the sea. She began writing poetry in 2016 after a long marketing career. Pushcart nominated, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Five Points Journal, the Birmingham Review, Rattle, Adroit, SWWIM, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize and the Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Prize judged by Ellen Bass. Her first book of poetry titled “how do you spell the sound of crickets” is an epistolary collection written with the late poet, Jory Post, and published by Paper Angel Press. You can read Paola’s poems and award-winning short plays at paolabruniwriter.com.
A Profile of the Author
Notes on “Pot Bellied Pig”
I’m blessed to live minutes from Seacliff State Beach in California. Prior to the devastating storms of 2023, this beach hosted campers who pulled in with their RV’s, pets, kids, and every manner of portable household paraphernalia. I walk on the beach every morning with my pitbull Hazel, and so was privy to much of the goings on.
One morning, we met Kevin Bacon, the potbellied pig. Hazel was confused. Sniff. Sniff. Not a dog? What is it? She took cover behind my legs. Kevin was clearly upset and his hollers needled me and left me feeling bereft and hopeless. The whole scene played out as it did in the poem. Later that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. About his life in the RV and how he was trapped in an existence as a pet-social-media-personality and unable to express his true nature.
As I started to write, I was surprised by how Kevin’s situation tapped into all the ways I feel harnessed by life, by the choices I’ve made. I felt that grief rise again. The questions came. What does it take to be free? How do we choose to re-wild ourselves as human beings in a society that is obsessed with public story? How do we find liberty and move away from the expected, or the norm? How do we remain true to ourselves?
Ultimately, I wanted to give Kevin a voice. I wanted to create a poem where he could be free, even for a moment to “gnash the pearly red beads of a mulberry tree.” I didn’t know the poem was going to be a social/personal commentary when I began writing it, but that was the surprise—and the discovery.
Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.
I’ve reached a point in my life I call the graying years; over the mid-point, but not dead yet! One has to cultivate a sense of humor.
I find myself particularly interested in existential studies; however, I’ll read great fiction like “The Women” by Kristin Hannah, or a fluffy romance novel just for the guilty pleasure. I’m obsessed with poets who reinvent Biblical stories and have been enjoying Pádraig Ó Tuama, Marie Howe, and Rilke. I just completed a course of study that examined “The Way of the Pilgrim,” a Greek Orthodox text written by an anonymous 19th Century Russian Peasant.
I absolutely adore a daily ritual of sunrise walks at the beach with my husband of 30 years and our pooch. The sea and sky are infinitely changeable, which I find thrilling and unnerving in equal measure. We can walk east and be suffuse in glorious orange tones. Walk west, and the moon lingers in a haze of lavender. It’s really quite stunning.
My prayer and meditation practice brings me comfort when the world feels like it’s spinning off its axis (logging a lot of zafu time these days). I self-decorate with temporary tattoos. No needles for me! I’m deeply curious about wild and domestic animals and often find them entering my poems. Sometimes uninvited. Sometimes, they are pushy. I try to listen, pay homage to what creatures have to teach me.
I appreciate deep breathing, candlelight, an elegantly prepared meal (food should be beautiful and moan-worthy!), and listening to my husband sing and play guitar (the ultimate groupie). Did I say I love words? I do. Darn it, I just do.
