New York Pitch Conference Reviews, Algonkian Writer Conferences, and Poetry Forums

hi Siva--- me i cut this: I have only heard of her from my mother. '' Don't hoard your secrets they will rot open the lid, they will disperse this is the secret of preserving that secret.'' Anything closed and kept closed will rot, will rot this is just to closely reasoned, it does not carry my emot...

Fred---



...would avoid,,,

We must become as little children
to understand the Kingdom of God.


the involved narrative is clear, but is tinged with advocacy. the challenge, to speak in religious terms while remaining poetic.



bernie

B---

I like Siva's suggested version.



bernie

Billy:



i like this....would see if the children can be more involved....coats flap open, caps blow sideways...


their voices tangle together....dreams...rise ....

but a very nice feel to this poem...a drowsy, dream like mood.



bernie

Billy:



just fabulous. great recognition for a great poem.



bernie

alas---


these whimsical observations are too few to save the poem from a travel magazine like feeling...


can the poem turn a little of that journalism into more poetic observation?


bernie

hi---- for me, less nature, more interaction the children and the bees. here is what a novelist did: An excerpt from Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde “The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden… The sullen murmur of the bees sho...

Billy: i like the poem here: for the moon cannot go on without me ---- ...those motherless days with no name walking crowded streets invisible to the ones who had places to go i searched alone until i named myself would consider fewer verses, more focus. less telling. otherwise, an ambitious poem ch...

hi Billy---- nicely developed, just enough show info to build a tension, a curiosity about the narrator. i wonder what happens if several specific locations are referenced, remarks about weather, old folks on rockers, kids waving. (got your note...thanks. health issues again, looking better now.) be...

Violin and White Shoulders Birds of some kind circle on updrafts holding wings like ice skaters on a winter pond, there must be something wrong with them. They fluoresce, turn blue with cold. below a corn laden barge creeps on the flaxen river. God opens the robe of my sweetheart and ladles on colo...

Michael---

i would love to represent our Forum in the current IBPC.

Bernard Henrie

mojave216bernard@aol.com

The poem is my original work and unpublished anywhere else.


I am not representing any other Forum.




bernie henrie

Billy and Frank---

good to have our club meeting here, for a change.


Birds of some kind
circle on updrafts
holding wings
like ice skaters
on a winter pond.

A corn laden barge
creeps the flaxen river.
a radio plays music
and offers the news.



will see what to do.


thanks all.


bernie

Billy---

a poem that takes no prisoners, that offers no false shelter in sentimentality---i like the poem just fine.

especially the chances taken by that string of long words in the final verse, as though the poem defies us not to like it and find melody in the unwashed dents and gaps.



bernie

Revised Version: (Michael, if you like this poem feel free to edit or otherwise amend. I trust your judgment. the former poem of yours i remember and liked very much at the time.....bernie) Birds of some kind circle on updrafts holding wings like ice skaters on a winter pond, there must be something...

Siva---


loved your comment.


bernie

Michael----


very sorry, The Waters is using another poem of mine i had forgotten about.

that poem you mentioned, Thought Rhymes with Caught is terrific.



bernie

S---

made that change. thanks for the edit and for reading this poem.



J---

conversation among friends sounds like a poem in itself.

thanks for stopping to converse with me, a stranger, but i hope now a friend.


bernie

New owners claim our room, nail tankards over the fireplace like killed mallards. Toss the moss green davenport, say goodbye to the linoleum curled along the corner. Au revoir to the wrinkled lunch sack carried to the empty football stands. Box the pinafore and windup clock, close cans of half-used ...

Siva---

i especially like the title.

the narrative flow is smooth, yet inventive.

good poem.


bernie

hi---sorry, just saw this note.

the poem is my original work and i am not representing any other board.

Beach Closure has not been printed in any magazine.

mojave216bernard@aol.com

I saw you in yellow, Doris Day walking shorts, beach umbrellas scattered on the sand colorful as students lined-up for first day of school. My mind was empty. I forgot the rhyme scheme for a villanelle, or how I found a photo of you leaning from a second floor window, a gypsum patched frame the whit...

yes, if not too late.... Private Life For fun and fully clothed she throws herself like a suicide into the sea, a foaming surf slaps her chest, knocks against her hips. In the dining room she moves table to table greeting strangers; avian beauty, silver lip gloss, long fold of brunette hair over one...

M---

yes it's me, Bernie....alias Mojave.

adopted your edit, great stuff. thanks so much.


bernie

A Private Life For fun and fully clothed she throws herself like a suicide into the sea, a foaming surf slaps her chest, knocks against her hips. In the dining room she moves table to table greeting strangers; avian beauty, silver lip gloss, long fold of brunette hair over one shoulder. She gathers...

wonderful collaboration...you picked a great partner.


bernie