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

Thanks michael, Bob Bernie, thanks, yes it could be trimmed a little. Here's a narrative poem similar to mine, of course I'm not saying mine is as good: Oranges he first time I walked With a girl, I was twelve, Cold, and weighted down With two oranges in my jacket. December. Frost cracking Beneath m...

Bernie, really like this, the bees, the print ink and roller image, the final stanza. I'm trying to find that crit of yours where you talk about writing poetry just not a hobby but how you aspire to be a formidable poet. I really like it and meant to say something at the time.

Before We Lost Our Innocence We rang and knocked. Gloria stood on her toes to see in the window. When she couldn't reach, she jumped up and down like a monkey. She fell on her butt, and we had a good laugh. I sat down beside her. We laughed again, uncontrollably, then got real quiet looking at the ...

Frank, I was really taken in by the first stanza, then the second stanza was a jolt which is good, but not this time. The atmosphere of the first stanza and the second are totally divergent for me.

Gracy, really have to say I like bernie's pared down version. I agree that what keeps me in this poem is the couple and their story. It is beautiful and actually says more about Patagonia than all the descriptions.

I like this short poem, Frank. I agree with Kenneth's appraisal--haunting.

I like this Michael. Just my suggestion and may not be what you want, but I would cut the first 2 stanzas and start at: "His first foray...

very good article about Mary Oliver and the artist's life. This is a real issue for me. I rarely have any free, uninterrupted time to write. Most of my poems are written in a few minutes often with interruptions. At times I've understood why Gauguin left family and job and ran off to Tahiti. My best...

Lovers (revised) To be loved is to be beautiful." --Kenneth Patchen Jules waits tables at my father's night club. Everyone's "honey" and "darling". He and his lover stay after hours to party. His chinless overbite reminds me of the goofy pelican, "ah, yup," on Saturday morning cartoons. His lover, ...

Thanks Kenneth, but you were writing good poems long before me back at Melic. I was just a newbie writing some pretty bad stuff, learning the ropes.

Swarming Stand still, don't get excited, they can sense it. That's what I told myself just before a bee left his calling card in the back of my hand. I was watering the Boston fern on our patio. A horde had taken refuge in its little jungle and weren't pleased with a bath. I keep ferns wet. I remem...

I nominated Kenneth's poem: Naming The Beasts In the beginning he had no frame of progeny, no personal history. Just a man, new-risen from mud, alone. Glimpses of them in the underbrush, the tops of trees; creatures like him In so much that they moved, lived, and breathed, but it stopped there. At d...

Congratulations

Very good from beginning to end. I'll nom. It for IBPC.

I love this up until the last two stanzas. The first 3 stanzas flow off the tongue and have such beauty and fantasy. The last 2 stanzas don't need much, just some re-phrasing, maybe. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. It's just my initial impression.

Revised Bernie, but I'm not sure it's right yet.

Dusk A broken vase. Pieces swept into a corner. The serous sunset. Having to sit down, out of breath, his fingers feel for left carotid. Pulse like a night light. A dog howls in the distance as if pain can be released and sleep come easy, settled in a warm spot where others have laid down their liv...

Thanks Bernie, for the input. I will sincerely consider your remarks about the first 3 lines. I was an atheist in high school after studying existentialism. I was a hedonist and believer off and on after that. Maybe being a hedonist leads to the other extreme. Actually, I'm always questioning, but d...

center ring - revision tigers tighten their circle the trainer cracks his whip keeps the door in sight for the terror he cages the sins he can't forget who will absolve him God has forsaken him or he God love is not a word he knows though he says it often survival is a game more treacherous than an...

Bernie, I've changed my mind and like the girl in the sundress. I think it's an excellent poem.

I really think this is close. It seems it's difficult emotionally for you, but I think it's close.

I agree, good revision. My edit, take or leave: People are agog. Tweet, warble and make merry. Customary to distribute gifts to the relatives during weddings. Discrimination found its way. The bridegroom's mother engages with a difference. Picks and chooses the people. Calculates the generations. No...

Yeah, I've seen this before a while back, wasn't it sent to IBPC back then, have you revised it. I like the ending and I think it's different from your original.

I like what you're trying to do here, but I was in the eye of the hurricane and didn't know there was one. After you explained I thought there were some good stuff. I'm not sure how you can fix it. Either in the title or get rid of the part about drinks. Not sure. BTW is that supposed to be "apostas...

I love: "Did I mention my wife died?"


Her sundress clean and stiff
As a girl at Communion. (this seems too predictable to me and easy, but it does follow in the steps of other poems of yours about lovers)


I imagine you will be changing this one a little.