“Sometimes I’m so dark, I cannot see myself.”
—M.R. Mandell
M.R. Mandell is a poet based in Los Angeles. She lives by the beach with her partner, also a writer, and her muse, a Golden Retriever named Chester Blue.
BOOKS
Don’t Worry About Me is a lyrical narrative of a girl growing up in a volatile, often violent, sometimes loving family, often on the edge of financial and emotional destruction.
In M.R. Mandell’s debut chapbook, her poems span the west, from Texas to California, exploring the empty corners of a conservative small town, to the hopes, fantasies, humor, and darkness of Los Angeles, the city she ultimately finds her dreams.
ORDER AT BOTTLECAP PRESS
POETRY
Self-Portrait in Things My Sisters Told Me Not to Do, but I Did Anyway, HAD
Ode to My Father’s Marlboro Lights, The Hooghly Review
Ritual Lost, The Hooghly Review
Poem for the Last Time I Saw My Parents In Love, The McNeese Review
Looking for Bukowski in Palos Verdes, DarkWinter Lit
A Poem is the Chelsea Hotel, DarkWinter Lit
That Time I Was Invited to Billy Idol's Party, Drunk Monkeys
The Pretender, Unbroken
Whatever it Takes to Fit into Our Calvin Klein Jeans, 1981, Maudlin House
A Poem for My Mom’s Freckles, Remington Review
Mom's Girl, Five Minute Lit
Crying in Texas, Writers Resist
Mom’s Bedside Table, Anti-Heroin Chic
A Killer on the Loose, Punk Monk
Melrose, JAKE
Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin, JAKE
Demi Moore Sighting in Brentwood, JAKE
WTF Michael Patrick King?, Drunk Monkeys
The Promise, sage cigarettes
The Betrayal, sage cigarettes
Her Last Room, Roi Faineant
blades, Roi Faineant
Sad Girls of Instagram, JAKE
Ode to the B Side, The Bloom
Every, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes
For a Day, Fine Print Press
The Forest, Stanchion Zine
Four Caskets, The Final Girl Bulletin Board
Received, Chill Subs
Photography
“If I lose my demons, I lose my angels as well.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke