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

Thanks bernie, always nice to have you like a poem since you usually dig deep and tell it like you see it. Thanks Kenneth, sorry it didn't work for you. Sergio, thanks, but I like the break from breeze to the more defining one barely feels. Thanks Michael, I like the title and the final line. I do w...

the saint in treatment there was a man with double addictions drugs and bulimia he was as thin as a breeze one barely feels yet he fretted complained that his body was atrocious bloated and ugly he would slip into his room devour a cookie spend hours in the bathroom his place to let go of what he d...

I like the story, the interjection of thoughts of the narrator. The slow arrival and build to the end.

I actually like the aquarium being bald. It's funny and how on earth could an aquarium have hair, anyway. Good, comic poem, Bernie.

Yes, great piece of music, but which one, there are several D major serenades, and the revision is a real improvement. It flows and I don't get stuck over-thinking the different instruments. Love the ending.

My poem is still available.

Siva, don't you have a poem representing The Waters?

Here's my poem in case it's chosen. It's my original work, unpublished. Not representing any other board. Billy Howell-Sinnard bhowellsinnard@gmail.com lest we forget the dogs, man “The barking of dogs is loud on every side: Where is the lion of the forest of Thy might, O Chastiser of the worlds?” 1...

I agree with Bernie's criticisms, but I think this can be a good poem, from a different angle.

My edits: get rid of 1st stanza The towers in black granite vibrate with high energy. The delineated sculptures the four principal deities face the cardinal directions omnipresence. Breathless, I diffuse in piety, remain motionless. After few minutes, I hear a puff and a huff. A mini van motors down...

I don't know if unwed to know who she is. I could guess mother or grandmother. I like the idea of time and illness.

My edits: She took a rainbow of pills with names that sounded like Greek gods: Xanax, Zyprexa, Zoloft. She would come to me, body convulsing with an electricty of pain so intense it created its own language, a cross between that sound Arab women make when they trill their tongues and a new-born's fi...

I accept Kenneth's nomination of my poem lest we forget the dogs, man.

Congratulations Frank, you were a poet long before this recognition, but it's good to be recognized.

An old performance, slam piece: lest we forget the dogs, man “The barking of dogs is loud on every side: Where is the lion of the forest of Thy might, O Chastiser of the worlds?” 1 listen, man the dogs are still barking not the dogs of my childhood, man I’m a child of the tube not the fallopian tube...

I really don't want to explain the whole poem. I'm taking a different slant on being raised from the dead. It not being such a great thing to have died and then brought back. Three times is a biblical reference. The last line is referring to Lazarus, not the actual house.

I like the title. There are a lot of ideas going on in the poem, but for me they don't gel into a focus that I can get a handle on. I like the first stanza.

New title to give more to the narrative and meaning.

Thanks Bernie for reading and commenting. You're pretty much right on in your appraisal. I wrote these as an exercise to get something flowing. I wrote them in all in 7 minutes and about 1 minute of minor editing. May use all or some of them either as revised or entirely different poems. Thanks.

How Do You Ever Know Frail, unkempt, better to be alone than this constant weighing facts, guesses, feelings in the gut of the night like a fire burning from the inside out, smoke deadly, hanging in the air between us a curtain, an elephant, speak the disease in my throat a choice and no choice, a ...

Yes, much better. I like the return to the Pinnochio image in the end. I'm not sure I like "dancing". I know it goes with the puppet image, but it is something good and uplifting and the boy is not dancing out of joy. Don't know if it is that important or how to fix it. The dancing is more like the ...

probably just me Bernie. I've lived with people who were not prostitutes and would walk around naked under a coat. They would smoke Galois, but I don't see an American prostitute smoking one, maybe a high class prostitute. Of course I grew up in the sixties and women did lots of things in those days.

Thanks bernie, kenneth, Bob

I like alabaster air. Good poem. I'm not sure I saw her as a prostitute even
though she was naked under a raincoat.

Good poem. Makes me want to know more about this poet. My only nit and maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but it's confusing to me. Are you saying he sells matches, opium and literature, I don't thinks so. I think you are saying he sells matches, and finds opium and literature preferable to food. But ...