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Don't Write a Poem About Me After I'm Dead
by Norma Ketzis Bernstock
Excerpts
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Bio
Norma Ketzis Bernstock lives in Milford, Pennsylvania where she writes and creates art in her studio in the woods. She is a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective and a founding member of the cooperative photography gallery, the Highlands Photo Guild, where her images are part of the permanent collection.
Her poetry has appeared in many literary journals including Caduceus, The Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, Sensations Magazine, and Lips, as well as in the anthologies, Paterson, the Poets’ City, Poetree, Voices from Here and Pennsylvania Seasons. Her home in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area provides peace of mind for poetic inspiration.
Reviews
With the photographer's attention to detail and the poet's skill with image, Norma Bernstock calls forth the sights, sounds, and smells of the old neighborhood, its kitchens, stores, and beaches. Moving comfortably through Time, she exposes the end of a marriage, with its closetful of unwanted negligees, and the beginning of new love that comes with the “scent of ripe apples.” In tender, powerful, and well-wrought poems, the poet examines the life of a modern woman and holds up its “tiny shafts of light” for our inspection. This debut collection hits both the head and the heart.
~ Diane Lockward, Temptation by Water
“Lately, it’s all about aging,” Bernstock writes, exploring the decline of her parents’ lives and examining the “muscle tears and bone bruises” of her own. These poems are furnished with saddle shoes and knishes, the Mickey Mouse Club and former lovers, Rockaway Beach and The Great Escape. “Have I done enough?” she asks in one. If you put stock in Williams’ “Memory is a kind of accomplishment,” then yes. She has accomplished poems that “survive on ripe dreams and wisteria wishes.” Their fragrance lingers.
~ Peter Murphy, Stubborn Child and Thorough & Efficient
"Norma Bernstock's poems are powerful explorations of love and loss. This is a poet to watch out for and not to miss. Amazing!
~ Maria Mazziotti Gillan, All That Lies Between Us
Purchase Don't Write a Poem About Me After I'm Dead here.
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