Scenes the Writer Shows: {Forty-one Places a Poem Can Go}

Poetry

By Michael Amram

Publisher : Trafford

ABOUT Michael Amram

Michael Amram
I've retired from the corporate world America loves so much.  In 2012, after 14 years of releasing medical records, I am focused on releasing things I create. I am the Indie author of the novel The Orthodoxy of Arrogance and poetry book Scenes the Writer Shows {forty-one places a poem ca More...

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Description

Scenes the Writer Shows {forty-one places a poem can go} is a collection of poems from travels and experiences. They describe situations and moments in life (mine or someone else's) that were either positive or negative. A few poems deal with teenage angst and issues of personal experience either in my own or someone else's life. "The Hustler" for example, loosely mirrors my life and experience as a disabled person. It is a montage of my years living in Downtown Minneapolis, riding public transit and adapting to urban life. Word-play, meter and music used often to create images that will draw the reader into the poem. For example, in "Waxing on Flames" I tried to create the image of a bonfire by a river with young scouts growing up as flames nurture them along: "We were young and at the mercy of our means and we flung ourselves Down upon the flames for what we knew felt right; I bridled from Those heated pains that boiled and tested me; and knelt down to Pray upon the iron grate while Moonlight splintered trees to shake Ripe, fierce winds I'd learned to hate;" My poems travel to England, to Scotland and Wales. They go to the Mid-east and to Norway. They go from my home in Minneapolis to New York and Tennessee.

collection of poems from travel and living close and far from home. These poems can trace their origins to airplanes, Europe's trains, street corners, city buses or the stools that sit erect in bars.

~~By  SandraAB   on August 17, 2013

Format: Paperback
In reading MB Moshe's collection of poems, I find myself reading a memoir. I'm reminded of Philip Bryant's Stompin' at the Grand Terrace: A Jazz Memoir in Verse. Moshe's memoir isn't jazz, yet he captures music nonetheless. Pop, rock and occasional modern classical sounds surround us, especially if we read these poems aloud.
Scenes the Writer Shows reminds us of the common advice that an author should "show rather than tell." Moshe lets us experience his highs and lows, his successes and foibles. Moshe takes us to a beach where he impresses young women with his words but is afraid to stand up for fear of displaying his legs, his disability. What makes this poetry universal is that, like all of us, Moshe strives for "normal" by showing his strengths and hiding his shortcomings. Occasionally he flaunts his disability as if to say, "See what I've accomplished."
He shuffles gimpy feet
To whisper who he is;
Shoes that know his limps
Will wait beneath his bed . . .

He crawls to bed mourning
The trains he couldn't catch,
Humming his praises and
Dreaming where they might go.

We join the poet on his visits to the Smoky Mountains, Stonehenge, Tel Aviv, and patio parties. We even join him on a Saint Patrick's Day pub crawl. Every good poet gives us a sense of place. In this collection we learn how the author feels in that place. We meet his wife, his friends and a few individuals who Moshe disdains.
Read slowly. Capture the clever metaphors and enjoy the puns. This bittersweet stroll through life is worth a read