Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

Acknowledgment: MiPOesias October 2010

Many thanks to Editor Didi Menendez for including work from To the Break of Dawn for the latest issue of MiPOesias.

You can preview and purchase the issue at MagCloud. Here’s some info:

MiPOesias (October 2010)
Edited by Didi Menendez and featuring work by GRACE CAVALIERI, SCOT SIEGEL, OSCAR BERMEO, KIMBERLY ALIDIO, MIRANDA MERKLEIN, DONAVON DAVIDSON, JASON RYBERG, MARTIN WILLITTS JR., GREGORY SHERL, MELISSA ELEFTHERION, KRISTINA MARIE DARLING, JEFFERY BERG, CHRISTINA MURPHY, DARYL ROGERS, MAGDALAWIT MAKONNEN, COLEEN SHIN, AMANDA GENTRY, KARINA BOROWICZ, MICHAEL BROEK, MARIA MIRANDA MALONEY, KIRK CURNUTT, MELISSA MCEWEN, JEFF FRIEDMAN, and art by AMY HUDDLESTON.

I’m also thankful for editors, like Didi, who are always looking for new work to include in their publications.  It’s been keeping me on my toes when it comes to having my cover letters and poems ready to go when a publishing opportunity comes around.  In short, I’m trying to do my best to keep my work out in the world and keep momentum going strong on my new chapbook and my developing manuscript.  It feels like I’m working three jobs: my normal 9-5, my work as an aspiring author and being my own PR team. Yeah, it has been a little draining as of late but it’s either work hard to get published or crawl away and I don’t plan on leaving.  End personal pep talk.

I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet

I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a PoetI Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet
by William Carlos Williams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Editor Edith Heal does a great job of capturing Williams’ honest reflections of his entire body of work from the beginning of his career up to the time of the interviews. Williams is open and honest and consistent on his desire to capture the American Idiom in both prose and verse.

Even more insightful are the commentaries from Florence Herman Williams, aka Flossie, the poet’s wife. An astute reader and honest voice, these interviews cement her role as the key collaborator behind all of Williams’ work.

A must read for any poet who is struggling to find the balance between working full time, fulfilling family obligations, and crafting a body of enduring work.

View all my reviews

to Holy Bronx


Bronx_Ramps
Originally uploaded by Pro-Zak

I’m getting ready for my feature at Writers with Drinks tonight and I can’t remember the last time I was so nervous for a feature.

If you’ve been to a Writers with Drinks, then you know what I’m talking about. The energy is incredibly kinetic and the caliber of writers is always top notch so I’m feeling some serious pressure on what I should read. I can go with the set that I’ve been used to doing the last couple of readings or go with all new stuff. The way I’m talking about this, you’d think I was doing these same poems for five years or sumthin.

Segue: Watching the National Poetry Slam finals recently through live internet stream was a nice experience cuz even if I didn’t like the poems per se, I do appreciate the spirit of competition. What I didn’t appreciate was the asshattery in the chat room. Way too many internet jerks saying things you know they would never say in real life. But, one comment did crack me up, as a poet came up and did a poem they’ve been doing in competition for a long time, and one of the commentators types “This is their Stairway to Heaven!” And as someone who used to have his own Stairway to Heaven I cracked up. End segue.

Ok, time to really get ready and I do want to try to add at least one really new poem to the mix because I don’t ever want to be that poet that does all the same things at all the same places. Been there, when I was younger, and done with it. I know all the reasons poets do the “hits” all the time but I really don’t care if there is “at least one person” in the room who has never heard that poem before. You know, that poem guaranteed to change lives. What I most care about is that the only way I can write that poem—the one that if I’m extremely lucky might get remembered 100 years from now—is by writing new stuff.

Speaking of new stuff. Here’s the latest revision of a poem I started at Martín Espada’s CantoMundo workshop. There’s at least three good stories behind this poem but that’ll have to wait for latah. See ya at the Make Out Room!

The Neighborhood and Tenant Association of Tremont Avenue, The Bronx, Gather to Erect a Statue for Robert Moses

[Poem was here. Can now be found at CrossBronx.]

To the Break of Dawn: And on and on…

Red Room's Book of the Day: To the Break of Dawn

Many thanks to Red Room for choosing To the Break of Dawn as their “Book of the Day” for August 6th.  It’s quite an honor and validates my decision to continue collecting my poems in chapbook form; partly to just get the poems out of my system, partly to get the attention of editors, but mostly to the share them among my personal network via gift economy.

With that said, I’ve already started to receive quite the bounty of artistic trade from the new chapbook.  Here’s what I’ve gotten so far:

I’m very grateful to all the folks who have shared these items from their libraries.  It’s always a great treat to have a peer share his/her work with me.  It’s also fun to see what folks are willing to swap when they either don’t have a book in print or I already have all their work.  One of my favorite exchanges was with a non-writer who really wanted to support my work and was looking for a copy of Heaven Below. They dug through their whole backpack and emerged with a copy of John Legend’s Evolver. “Is this ok?” Hell yeah, I said, and happily traded with ’em.

The call is still out, anyone interested in trading something from your media library for a copy of one of my chapbooks— Holler at me!

Acknowledgement: Poets Responding to SB1070 & La Bloga On-Line Floricanto


Hate Fee Zone
Originally uploaded by xomiele

Many thanks to Francisco X. Alarcón and all the editors at Facebook’s Poets Responding to SB 1070 for including my poem “By the Time I Get to Arizona” in their online anthology. It’s an honor to be included in such a diverse and populous list of voices who continue to speak up against the terror legislation of Gov Jan Brewer. Even as key parts of the law are being struck down by the Federal government, the fight against SB 1070 goes on and the voices continue to ring.

Speaking of a multitude of voices, La Bloga’s On-Line Floricanto is reprinting select poems from the Facebook anthology and are also including my work. Mil gracias to Michael Sedano and all the gente at La Bloga for providing another opportunity to declare our hope that Arizona can take care of all her children equally and justly.

An extra shout out to Francisco Aragón for passing on my poem to Señor Alarcón and helping creating more poetry bridges.