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

Frank--- burn this. a polemic, political and not memorable. review the entertaining and original poem i listed for Kate Tempest. here...Kate on winning.... See – he’s less the tights and garters – more the sons demanding answers from the absence of their fathers. The hot darkness of your last embra...

Thanks, Frank . bridesmaids prefer no double plurals. but i now take your suggestion about the short groom. now he is portly ...maybe later i will make him plump. like the plump Buck Mulligan: Ulysses.... the novel's famous first sentence: Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, beari...

R#3 Guests dodge the withering rain, pack the church, cough and stamp. A bridesmaid, then two more, mixed ages, breasts at the neckline no bigger than water chestnuts. Fashionable clothes wrap smoothly over the sexless hips of women thin as wonton soup. The mother drapes a fur, reads a Lin Bao poem...

Bob Bradshaw's waiting for spring.


a second for Waiting for a bus at Armarnath Temple


bernie

M--- one of your best i think. because the logic is complex and requires the reader to understand the poet's intention. here, for example: ...extend a smile and a bow an accomplished acting. Impressed by their charm I stay happy, and especially here: ...assume I am great and terrific. and this soli...

Bob--- wonderful confessional tone and flow. suggestions: I tried too hard, like a bellman crazy for tips. I would carry her bags ninety floors in sweltering heat if she asked. She sat me down at the Fairmont and over iced tea calmly informed me we had to break up so she could meet someone new. I c...

Dale--- holy cow, this is great. talk about establishing a sense of place---something our current IBPC judge has stated a strong preference for---this poem of yours has the roots of an Egyptian pyramid, the swimming depths of the Mississippi at flood stage. details, details that tell a story just a...

nomination for

bob's

The Direction I Walk in the Morning (final revision)

and

Dale's

The Direction I Walk in the Morning (final revision)


and Meenas:

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Gratefully accepting the nom for Camille Claudel. my original work, not representing any other board and unpublished. Bernard Henrie mojave216bernard@aol.com 323-338-4706 She watched Debussy like a bird with a morsel. I felt hypnotized by the rhythmic hammers of his piano, the burl wood bathed my fa...

Thanks, guys. the poem references ’El Mal’ei Rahamim, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wth4VQLToc A blustery, New York day. graveside with a colleague from the office. A traditional prayer sung at funerals. A prayer for the Departed. Even a restless atheist like myself found comfort in these words. ...

The Jewish cemetery is crowded with markers and visitors sometime stumble over the graves, the messages once so clear, now calligraphy I cannot understand though I wipe my glasses. Among the tatters and unevenly cut grass I speak to mother and father, it pleases me to imagine they hear my voice from...

Bob---


priests, and criminals....clearly....as i have a prostitute tell the story as she knew it about Claudel...


very different in first person where the poet speaks for the celebrity.


bernie

Bob---


raging triumph...


love your eye for detail, above all to see a poem in this flurry, this constellation of unfolding events.

i stand with the narrator, every moment pregnant with unperceived riddles.


my nom for IBPC.


along with Dale's pom...



bernie

Dale--- i rewrite constantly and without protest... is the poem overwritten? for me, no, but this is a workshop---soooo, what would i cut? My left leg is longer than the right, for balance I wear special shoes, transfer my weight to a burled maple cane, walk with high steps and lurch like a carrous...

Dale--- oh, wonderful. the details, the aromas, the visuals prepare the reader skillfully for the added layer of deeply felt emotion. the basis for not just good poetry, but art. my nomination for IBPC. our current IBPC judge loves a poem with a clear sense of place, boy, this poem has the cafe in ...

Bob--- my prejudice is talking first person in the voice of another....developed as a journalist....bugs me, though, in any other arena. since the musician, in your poem, is unknow, what if his unknown doctor spoke the poem? speaking like Mozart....bothers me....a few months ago, a poet spoke like M...

Bob---


hope you like the revision as much as i do.


bernie

or should i say, Dale.... here is an IBPC winner closing from Sara Sloat: On Waking I Think of Winter by Sarah Sloat September 2009 Judged by George Szirtes mostly because my legs jut like a long pier out over waves in the dark’s oceanic pitch I think of winter when my husband snores across the expa...

I--- (hello ole poetry friend...so glad to see you here.) wonderful poem, skilled narrative with enough variation to hold my interest and not too much that i feel disoriented and lost. i love the original image of one leg being shorter than the other---ah ball cap lettering, and especially: For bal...

Bob----- my implacable prejudice, quoting a celebrity source with complete license and without any citation. now, the pom itself... i ask myself, am i reading because this is about a celebrity, or for firmer reasons? in this case a very real drama unfolds with quick, clear and original lines. I cri...

M---


could i tempt you to consider the s.east Iindian diaspora?


here, for example----


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MedCJSLeU


or to quote a few lines from an Indian poet that moves you.


or from the country of your residence.

M--- maybe a bad joke, but not to me, what some guy in the South said abut Hawking's demise---now he knows the answer. (is there a God---an afterlife?) i like the greater subtle of your lines show... Billy Graham, dead at age 99... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgz4Jw1Tn08 Brother saved from the ...

M--- oh, i seeeee. dust mites, particles, clots, balls---resembling modern art in a gallery. saying that helps the reader---this reader--- to move swiftly through the poem----makes the excellent Hanging Gardens final line more stunning. would you want to name an artist, a painting? I find petite fi...

M---


i like the original scene the poem sets for me. good narrative follow through.


only, are the pictures actually alive?

did I misunderstand?

and chasing them?


And i don't understand the final image.




but a poem with a thought provoking spine, a strong central reality.


bernie