I read for the Poetry Slam on June 3rd, held at the Bean Cycle and sponsored by the Matter Bookstore in Fort Collins, Colorado. The slam, a packed to the edges of the can event, featured ten poets sharing some amazing work.
My poem, “The Meaning of Life” presented a deep look at society’s shallow take on living, delving into our culture’s broken promises and slanted point of view and contrasting those things with being guided by heart, instead of others’ expectations. The poem offers a view of acceptance and love and emerges with the realization that living from the heart is the basis for having a genuine and connected life. The poem is a part of my new collection, Fallings from Heaven.
I wrote the poem last fall in a coffee shop in Solana Beach, California, with pen and paper and a very deep sense of wonder and observation of the amazing buzz in that environment. I see it as a full circle expression of where bravery will take us if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and jump… finding out we can indeed fly, despite our frailties and past failures.
At the slam, I was very impressed with the work of an emerging poet, William Stanford, from Portland, Oregon. His poems offer a good use of imagery and speak deeply from his heart. He is an young poet to watch.
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About Bruce Arlen Wasserman
Bruce Arlen Wasserman assembled his first poetry manuscript with a typewriter on the kitchen table when he was seventeen, farmed and worked as a blacksmith, drove a tractor-trailer in college, edited professional journals, wrote as a freelance journalist and is a dentist. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was a semi-finalist for the Francine Ringold Awards for New Writers, a semi-finalist for the Proverse Prize and won the Anna Davidson Rosenberg 2019 Poetry Award. He writes poetry and fiction. His book, THE BROKEN NIGHT, was published by Finishing Line Press in July, 2022.
Bruce received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a literary critic for the New York Journal of Books. His writing has been published in the Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology, The Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, The River Heron Review, Kindred Literary Magazine, the Broad River Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, High Shelf Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal and the Washington Independent Review of Books. Beyond writing, he creates visual art as a potter at Bruce Arlen Wasserman Studio, where he draws from the reservoir of poetry and his experience in working iron and wood, correlating a continued exploration of language, function and esoteric form.
