The poet must find new words, new images, new forms to move us. In the first part of Am I my Brother’s Keeper?, Bernard Block addresses injustice, poverty or discrimination, attempting to touch us and arouse us to profound issues otherwise buried in the avalanche of "breaking news". The brightness of his language illuminates and dignifies the victims of tragic events, leaving a trail of sparks that lasts beyond the poem.
In the second part of this book, the poet arrives—or begins—as playing, to conjugate the language of infancy and war of the children, in verses inspired by Wordsworth's vision of childhood ironically mixed with surrealism and the language of Dada, of post World War I Europe. There the reader will find nostalgia, intimations of loss, apparitions in the mist.
In the final part of Am I my Brother’s Keeper? Who are we?: a spider, a king, a wall, a soldier, a sherpa, a child of the sea, the Rose of Tacloban. There are no answers.
Bernard Block attempts to write "engaged" poetry inspired by Walt Whitman's "Poetry from the people, for the people" or perhaps Percy Bysshe Shelley, who In Defense of Poetry wrote: "Poetry animated by political events, a Visionary Poetry that inspires, shapes politics and alters lives. Visionary Poetry as an advanced guard of moral awakening."
Born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Bernard Block attended Cornell University and Brooklyn College and obtained a degree in English and American Literature. He hitch-hiked to California in 1965 and lived in the Haight-Ashbury through 1967.
He was present at the Human Be-In in January, 1967 and attended the Monterey Pop Festival in June, 1967.
Bernard presented poetry readings at the I and Thou coffeehouse in the Haight, coffeehouses in North Beach, Golden Gate Park and at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. He returned to NYC and studied with the poet Colette Inez in the mid ’70's.
For 23 years, Bernard earned his living as a caseworker for the NYC Bureau of Child Welfare (he is now retired). He has read at all the major spoken-word venues in New York City and Long Island and has presented his poetry in venues in Philadelphia, PA, Columbia, SC and Asheville, NC.
In August, 2014 Bernard was invited to feature in Laugharne, South Wales in celebration of Dylan Thomas' Centenary.
Since May 19, 2012, Bernard has curated and hosted the Series "From Whitman to Ginsberg" at the Cornelia Street Café in New York City. All eighteen editions have been videotaped and are available on Bernard's YouTube channel.
He has 38 poems published in the prestigious on-line European literary journal, Levure Littéraire issues No. 8, 9 and 12. (Editors: Rodica Draghincescu and Erika Dagnino).
Five of Bernard's poems appear in the French/English literary journal Recours au Poeme (Marilyne Bertoncini, Editor) with French translation by Elizabeth Brunazzi. In an article in this journal regarding the NYC poetry scene, Ms. Brunazzi devotes a significant discussion to Bernard's poetry and his organizing role on that scene.
