Publications
At the Crossroads
“At the Crossroads” by Lina Belar is a collection of poems in which she explores her love for nature and all its creatures. The book begins by celebrating her adopted homeland of northern Minnesota and its understated beauty. She continues with poems that honor the Slovenian heritage she has come to love and ends with observations about coastal Florida. Like all her writing, there are always unexpected flights of fancy. The poems are written in free verse that clearly echo the beat and gentle sweeps of melody. Lina is also a lifelong musician.
Rural Score
Lina Belar’s work moves through mostly rural places and seasons with eyes “hungry for color,” “observing, cataloguing, admiring / Maybe loving,” from the lives of shy girls and an unbridled passion for the books she reads as a child to hollyhocks standing guard at abandoned gas stations and poplar leaves in autumn “like anxious debutantes / trying on dresses / for the Harvest Ball.” More often than not, these poems are indeed acts of loving.