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

Siva--- i'm big on not confusing the reader, but your poem offers an encounter with mystery, and that is a delight. you tell stories, there is progression, jump cutting, a comfortableness with the mammoth history of the many different Indias. and I feel Indian. only the pronoun in the last verse co...

Frank---

yes, you got me between the eyes with that shot. i luv poms, it has nothing to do with being any good at the poetry game, but it's where i belong.

bless your comment.


bernie

Frank--- hey buddy, you trying to give an ole man a heart attack? nice job and i agree with Bob. small stuff----just one ball and cadaver per poem. great action/visuals here: He climbed to the tenth floor balcony stumbling over bodies, Judy from accounts slit from crotch to eyeballs, the July sun a ...

Guys....


old enough to remember a 1960 broadway play?

Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad---


and the funny line was, i haven't seen the play, but i read the title.


bernie

I second Billy's nomination and add my nomination for Bob's new poem. Van Gogh in Paris I no longer strove for scenes so dark they could have been sketched with stubs of coal. Flowers were cheap and I had no money other than Theo’s. So I painted as if there were fields of flowers to be found in Mont...

BOB-- A thrilling narrative that quietly breaks the heart. the flow manages skillful changes of both attitude and thrust---the result is that the poem is fresh with every line without any need to shock or disorient the reader. very professional, very skillful. do you know sarah sloat? active in the ...

Oh boy, those last four lines.

keep reading them over and over, my body a frozen mannikin smiling blankly, waiting to be awakened.


love it.


bernie

Billy--- great job. like this pom so much....you're raising my blood pressure. the last line, for me, unexpected and a dead on Floyd Merryweather knockout. The graffiti in the restroom tells all. Sit Down, Let's Talk About Hidden Things suggest "lie down" At least, try. Somewhere in the lies is the...

careful, you don't want to sound like the Channel 5 weather reporter: choppy seas.......turbulence..... and i would kick the myth talk...no oyamel forest..... save the spotlight.....entirely for the lovers, their fragility and beauty suggested by the butterflies. Each year love..... like swimmers in...

WRITER AMA--- thanks for your comment. especially, I, on the other hand, must practice my absent- mindedness, memory being awkward as a touch that goes unloved. nice close that stays in character---that is photography. very nice. i buy the idea, let the poem stay in character, the references in rela...

BOB--- i hope you know i wouldn't just shock a reader when the poem has nothing else to offer, so i especially treasure your comment. i follow this narrator closely, saying goodbye to a lover who is returning to a husband, a narrator who sees his city in visceral yet sensitive terms, and then in a ...

Bob--- me too. Siva--- let me think about that husband...what line could i use to individualize him? I don't want him to share the spotlight with the first person narrator, know what i mean? well, will think slowly about that. frank--- wow, you got me thinking wild thoughts 'bout this pom. my, my. ...

B---- i like this cruise down memory lane...details, a lesson for those of us attempting to recreate such adventures. less fond of this phrase: unbridled against growing youth. the poem speaks, murmurs a figurative even if clear language, but the phrase i'm pulling out for a closer look, that phrase...

She returns to a husband in posh Kali-ben. The vicissitudes of the city heavy like lead paint thrown on Rabindra Setu Bridge. The pillowcase and towel hold a swirl of pectin scent, the cup branded by a burnt maroon mouth. Rain pours with both hands. Streets fold into white ash. Lights turn-on soft a...

700 green stems
each with a round
white face the size
of a motionless
nickle surprised
by an unexpected
birthday party.

Michael--- love to see a poet going for broke, the heart wide open and unprotected. a good lesson, good example for me. i liked the poem, the whole poem. i don't write like that, but i think i will try one soon. ain't i got heart too? well, let's see. (alas , the picture did not open for me.) bernie

Bob-- as before, i am drawn to the original subject matter. but I would reconsider "coffee." pretty bland for artists in a bar...How about absinthe? he pained that alcohol, and drank a bit himself. (and yes i know, a beer actually rests on the table he paints. https://www.wayfair.com/Buyenlarge-The-...

Billy--- i like the subtle ending---and the deploying dialogue...but only in a truncated way....too much hissing, too much literal mimicking of the iron....and conventional sounds, at that. are they so important? not to me. an the steam as an elevating christ figure....just way too much, yes? the dr...

Frank--- your comments, always so helpful to me. and the poet from peru i prefer, poet Cesar Vallejo October 1936 - Poem by Cesar Vallejo From all of this I am the only one who leaves. From this bench I go away, from my pants, from my great situation, from my actions, from my number split side to s...

Bob---

thanks for stopping back and the comment.


lucinda williams,,,maybe she works for you....sure does for me. she is a wonderful poet, frank, original and powerful lines with emotional force.



here, she thinks about a former lover, i'll get over you, over time....she sings...


bernie

Bob---


close call, but i would leave the word in the pom. i like the toughness of stating a usually hidden, private emotion.


bernie

Bob---

agreed, but i hope the subject interests the reader.

A revised pom now posted here.


thanks,

bernie

Bob--- the poem attempts a treacherous walk on the edge of sentimentality---pat boone sings the song, but so does this man circa 1940: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-avast-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=avast&p=when+the+swallows+come+back+to+capistrano+music#id=2&vid=d94d7976c7909830aceb...

Version 2: We scuff in the ancient dirt, and almost ancient ourselves we poke for Inca trinkets, dented stone spoons. Once we found a tattoo frieze on bricks. High in the Andes we serve ourselves a breakfast of boiling, chicory. Peru spills below our wrinkled tent like a Matisse pastel. At that alti...

S--- your poem references the Cauvery---a river. that passage is wonderful. and a river bank at the end of the poem, but no reference to coins elsewhere. The poet hopes to purchase "the bus fare to Shiva's abode." for the departed. money, all of a sudden. a sophisticated thought for a child, yes? se...