Am I my Brother's Keeper? By Bernard Block

Am I my Brother's Keeper? / ¿Soy el guardián de mi hermano? —represents the fifth in an ongoing series of bilingual poetry collections published by Darklight Publishing LLC.

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."

Here is one of Bernard Block's poems:

SHANTY BY THE TRACKS

In Twin Branch, West Virginia where paved road

Gives way to dirt before winding up to pines,

In Twin Branch where life folds

And the graveyard has no signs

How’s John boy?  Sabrina asked Marie one white winter morn

Black dirt winding round the pines

John boy had another seizure the other night  said she

Staring past the graveyard, staring past the pines

He’s in the undertow  said she  in a hole

No way out  here in a shanty by the tracks

She drizzles honey on a homemade biscuit in a bowl

Stares at ants crawling round the cracks

I’m 30 years old, carrying my life in a pack

Said John boy as he stared across the track

Staring past the graveyard, past the pines

Staring down the bowl, looking for a sign

Momma Marie said  There ain’t no signs

Here in Twin Branch  in the shadow of the pines

The sun ain’t risen since the coal mine left the town

John boy dropped his spoon but it didn’t make a sound

It didn’t make a sound as the planet spun around

As the undertow came in ‘neath the shadow of the pine

As John boy and Marie listened, listened for a sound

They stared down the bowl, looking for a sign

Am I my Broyher's Keeper? / ¿Soy el guardián de mi hermano?, bilingual edition, is now available through amazon.com and was translated into Spanish and edited by Roberto Mendoza Ayala; it contains six beautiful illustrations and a cover designed by the Mexican graphic artist Alonso Venegas Gómez.

Darklight Publishing LLC, was created in 2016 based in New York City to disseminate the poetic work of contemporary American and Latin American authors. Translation and editing are in the capable hands of teams of artists in Mexico and the United States. The bilingual series of books named "Bridges" was conceived seeking readers in our geographic hemisphere, where there is a broad exchange between the English and Spanish languages.

These books are distributed in many American and European countries, in printed or digital formats, through the Amazon website.

They are also now available at Barnes & Noble bookstores located throughout the U.S.A.