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

“Sorry that I've been away for a while (not that I'm everyone's favorite new member, but I like to pretend that I'm wanted).” This is the attitude you came him with, a self-fulfilling prophecy. You create your own problem and then fulfill. You might want to look at yourself. I’ve recently, at age 74...

“Sorry that I've been away for a while (not that I'm everyone's favorite new member, but I like to pretend that I'm wanted).” This is the attitude you came him with, a self-fulfilling prophecy. You create your own problem and then fulfill. You might want to look at yourself. I’ve recently, at age 74...

Is this better Bob?

Guilty until proven innocent, I guesss. This is a delightful poem. I loved the whole thing, but especially the first half. Yours isn't just telling like mine; it has poetry to it, lyricism, similes, just great.

Good, funny poem with a hint of universal frustration with injustice.

Your poem inspired me to post one of my run-ins with the law. I might post some other ones if I can find time to write at the moment.

A Night in Jail Leroy Truck, or Track, he used both as if it didn't matter which was right. Dad, a New Deal Democrat, picked him up off the streets, homeless, gave him a job and a place to live. Leroy had a widow's peak, hair slicked back like a forties crooner which was odd for a Lakota. Dad baile...

Thanks Bob for your enthusiasm and kind response.
Thanks Caleb

Blue Prayer Beads 95 beads in total, a tassel of embroidery floss. 5 pewter beads separate the remaining 90 blue Dumortierite beads. A gift from my wife who's always there to save a drowning man. I say, "Allah’u’Abha", slide a bead left or right each count until I feel the tassel that’s like an art...

As I said, I don’t come here a lot. I have another site I go to more.
Right now, I’m not posting much anywhere. Having trouble writing for the moment.

I agree with Michael.

This is a clever and discerning poem. One of the best you’ve posted.

Thanks Frank, Caleb, for reading and commenting

Sorry you feel that way. First this is not my main poetry workshop. I used to come here more but it’s been awhile. You sure make a lot of assumptions and judgments. And usually people here don’t post 5 or six poems in a row. I just came here after posting poems in a site where you post a poem a day ...

It’s a narrative poem. Most of your poems are narrative poems, maybe shorter than mine but I’m sure you’ve poems by more accomplished poets than me that are narrative and as long or longer than mine. In my humble opinion everything in the poem is salient to the whole.

You've presumed a lot of things.

Spinocerebral Ataxia Type 2 I thought about death again today. Being a hospice nurse you’d think I would have built a wall, detached myself. There are holes in my wall. Recently, I failed when my patient was forty-two with a hereditary disease. His mother died from it. Five out of seven of his sibl...

Just my take: Unwrapping the Truth The thumb print on the dust jacket of Stalling’s new book tells me that the Amazon clerk forgot to wash his hands after a lunch of fried chicken. Compared to such blossoms as I find inside, my efforts are oily smudges, my pride a grease trap from which immortal flo...

Thanks Caleb for commenting.

I had a mother who berated me. It was her own insecurities. Someone probably did the same to her. This is one of my very early poems and I hadn’t forgiven her yet. Calling My Mother When I call her, it is the last day, the last hour. Nothing has changed. Her voice curls around my spine, twisted ther...

Today I Was Her Dad Though Tonight She Asks Me Where The Man Is Who Raked Leaves She got out of bed today. I asked her to help me in the yard, surprised that she said yes. She raked ulu leaves into a pile of crumbling softball mitts. After five minutes, she tired, sat in the lawn chair examining he...

Very good, Bob, the poem relates to me of a mother and daughter very close, who would confide in each other. My wife and her daughter, my stepdaughter, are that way. Lots of great images and similes.

Just be yourself, a human being, and write what you know, tell the truth, as Hemingway said.

I do agree with Bob, the title already says what the first line repeats. And the next lines accomplish your frustration with her, and your disdain.

Thanks, Bob
Caleb, I don't feel the need to explain what seems pretty apparent, maybe you need to read it again.

Not Looking Forward To The Last Note I wrote a note to my grandson. He had asked me before he went to sleep to write another one like I did the last time. He likes the idea so much it's become our beginning and end of the day when he comes to visit: "Love you, Kahi, I've gone to work, Papa." When I...

I want to see it end at "that uncaring folks get into more scrapes", cut the last line. Or replace the last line with something like this:

Too often, the ones I've loved needed bandaging.

revised