{"id":635,"date":"2024-05-13T21:16:24","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T21:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/?p=635"},"modified":"2024-05-13T21:16:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T21:16:24","slug":"poems-with-clarity-and-wit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/13\/poems-with-clarity-and-wit\/","title":{"rendered":"Poems with clarity and wit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"183\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Plain-Sight.jpg?resize=183%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Book cover for Plain Sight by David Bergman shows a man with a flashlight finding a piece of paper in the forest at night.\" class=\"wp-image-636\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Plain-Sight.jpg?resize=183%2C300&amp;ssl=1 183w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Plain-Sight.jpg?w=305&amp;ssl=1 305w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/200356389-plain-sight\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/200356389-plain-sight\">Plain Sight<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/140459.David_Bergman\">David Bergman<\/a><br><br>My rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/6502359722\">5 of 5 stars<\/a><br><br><br>I recently saw <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/140459.David_Bergman\">David Bergman<\/a> at the Baltimore CityLit festival, at a session about publishing later in life. He was in the audience, and one of the panelists unexpectedly asked him to read a poem. The one he chose, &#8220;The Man Who Was Not a Robot,&#8221; is a wonderful piece from his latest collection, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/200356389.Plain_Sight\">Plain Sight<\/a>, that prompted me to purchase the book.<br><br>This is Bergman&#8217;s third book of poetry, and his first in 25 years. He has Parkinson\u2019s disease, and his poems are tempered and shaped by the specters of aging and disease. He is a great storyteller, writing with clarity, wit, and a very distinctive voice. Reading through these often conversational poems, even though I&#8217;d only met him once, I could almost hear him reading them.<br><br>Bergman tackles difficult topics head on with humor and grace. A series of &#8220;The Man Who\u2026&#8221; poems forms the core of the collection, and many are outstanding, including the aforementioned poem, &#8220;The Man Who Could Not Smile,&#8221; and &#8220;The Man Who Knew Wonder.&#8221; Other standout poems include the heartbreaking &#8220;The Memory Sharer&#8221; and the beautiful closing poem, &#8220;Grace.&#8221;<br><br>Overall, this is a thought-provoking, welcoming collection. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plain Sight by David Bergman My rating: 5 of 5 stars I recently saw David Bergman at the Baltimore CityLit festival, at a session about publishing later in life. He was in the audience, and one of the panelists unexpectedly asked him to read a poem. The one he chose, &#8220;The Man Who Was Not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRPpr-af","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}