Arlene Bernstein worked first as a proofreader/editor in
Manhattan before moving on to a long career as a Philadelphia high school English teacher. In December 2004, she made her debut as a performance poet and event organizer at the Bala Cynwyd Library — presenting her “Friends of Poetry” Series through December 2005. Her poetry has been published in Freshet, Mad Poets Review, Ink, Tracks, Nature in Legends and Literature, and Schuylkill Vallery Journal of the Arts; her recent article, “Richard William Pearce, Lost Child” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Arlene is affiliated with Mad Poets Society; Freshmeadow Poets of Flushing, NY; Broadacres Poets of Narberth, PA; and Bonnie Baillis’ Poetry Circle of Havertown, PA.
The Interview:
Q. How has your career in the public school system influenced your poetry and did your love of poetry influence students?
It seems to me that my career in the public school system galvanized my psyche, instructing me even more about the pathos and brutality of life than I knew, instinctively, from birth onward. It helped force me even more inward than I was naturally and thus, probably helped deepen my work. Did it provide new subject matter? While it might have to another, less internal poet, it did not to me. It probably, in some bizarre way, aided me in compacting and refining my longing to escape from worldly and external trivia. I sought diversion within. Strangely enough, my love of poetry did enhance my teaching! I tried always to teachwhat I had been taught at Girls High and the University of Pennsylvania. I offered always what I loved, because honesty and integrity were my sole weapons against the preponderance of apathy and hostility encountered over a period of thirty-two years at the same inner city high school. My determination to be “in it” but not “of it” enabled me to reach whatever open minds and hearts I encountered. Poetry of love and despair throughout the ages was my forte, and those damned kids perceived, if not the nuances, the power of the passion which I brought to unearthing the passion within the work and within them. In my choice of teaching material I never conceded to the modern concept of “relevance.” I never taught anything I would be embarrassed to claim as my own.
Q. Who were the major influences on you as you developed as a poet/writer?
The first and earliest influences on my voice were the Old Testament and the great fairy tales of Grimm and all those incredibly rich classic children’s books I devoured in the sunny library at 4th and Shunk Streets. In school, each morning, we heard the cadences and diction of the King James Version, a training in English forever lost to today’s school children because of a perverted sense of political correctness.This influence remains with me, as do the complex sinewy sentence structure of John Donne and Andrew Marvell. I love the argumentativeness of Shakespeare’s soliloquies, the forcefulness of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues, the amazingly tight/freestructure of T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock, the wrenching power and extraordinary ideation of May Sarton and Stanley Kunitz, the brash songs of Emily Dickinson, the bitterness of Robert Lowell. I tend to look on the contemporary work so heralded by many of my peers as kind of nice but superficial ephemera….Billy Collins comes to mind.
Q. “The Friends of Poetry” series ran into 2005. What challenges did you face as the host of the series and what were the benefits?
The first Friends of Poetry Series ran for one full year at the Bala Cynwyd Library. I may sound like a braggart when I say that it was the liveliest and best attended series I have ever encountered in my four-year little journey around the area poetry circuits. We averaged audiences of twenty-five and had forty-five once or twice. The biggest challenge was the head Librarian, Jean Knapp, who told me that as far as she was concerned the series was NOT a success because when I brought “my people” there on Wednesday nights she had no place to park her car! Furthermore, everywhere she looked she saw my name and the name of the Library getting “too much” publicity! Needless to say, I didn’t want to be beholden to such a mean-spirited “benefactor,” and so I had to scramble around for new digs. But the benefits far outweighed the shock of Jean’s words. I got to know Eileen D’Angelo, who helped me enormously in every way; I kind of created an audience, who kind of followed me to new settings; I learned how much work there is behind the glamour of performance. Finally, I met many of the wonderful people with whom I still enjoy comradeship in Poetry and Fun!
Q. You are one of the “go to” people for the Mad Poets Society. You will be hosting an open mic for First Fridays in Bryn Mawr and “A Little Summer Madness” in Prospect Park. What should one expect when attending an event hosted by Arlen Bernstein?
What a wonderfully whimsical question, Emil! My philosophy of poetry performancemaintains that, at public events, the audience wants to be stimulated, aroused, satisfied!!!Oh, yeah, they will hear our laments and dirges in sympathetic silence….listen to our complaints about the world with rueful agreement…think about the deep thoughts we utter and nod intelligently! But actually, I think what they crave more than anything is pleasure…and, if not laughter, they want to be able to cry and feel and react with passion and excitement. They do want catharsis. They don’t want TOO much solemnity or gravity. They DON’T want preaching! They want what they didn’t know they wanted! They want novelty! They want to be surprised, caught off guard. They want to feel they are part of a celebration. They want joy. In my (possibly deluded)mind, this is what I feel inspired to convey. Just as I was painfully honest with my huddled (and hostile) masses of students yearning to be free, I do allow my audiences to see me as I am with all my warty quirks.
Q. Skin Radio recently held a poetry slam with poets who have read on their station reading live. How does it feel to have your poetry on the radio exposing your work to a whole new audience?
Oh, broadcasting for Skin Radio was a hoot. Of course, I have no idea who heard me or whether they found my work valuable. I would be happy to have other stations, like WXPN, replicate the project. They stick to established organizational patterns, however,like promulgating Kelley’s Writers House events…which is fine…not my cup of tea, usually, because of its , to MY ears, doctrinaire and political approach to poetry. Tom Kelley was willing to take it as it lays….recording and playing an incredibly wide variety of stuff right off the street, so to speak. We need a lot more of that. We need to provide distribution to the mavericks and independent cusses of the poetry world. Don’t worry: the good stuff will rise to the top.
Q. Your poetry has been published widely; in fact you received a pushcart nomination for “Richard William Pearce-Lost Child”. What direction do you see your poetry, fiction and non-fiction moving in?
The Pushcart Prize nomination was for an article in Peter Krok’s Schyllkill Valley Journal, an honor which I really appreciated. I wish the rest of your question were as simple to answer. Sometimes the direction in which my writing and I both move seems to be circular! At other times I like to think I discern a spiral. Seriously, however, I think I need more than anything to consolidate my work and spend the energy necessary for decent publication. A dear friend and colleague recently and ruefully observed that most of us get lots of individual pieces published in journals that nobody - - including ourselves - -ever read or even heard of before we sent off a poem to them! And that’s so true. What to do about that irony? But your question wasn’t about that. So let me return to our muttons! I seem never to tire of examining the vicissitudes of romantic/erotic love, so I don’t foresee any changes there. I have a memoir that cries for many more chapters and several ideas for novels,beyond the one I’ve been hacking away at for such a long time! But the inner direction seems to be toward simplification of discourse. I’m annoyed with my own prolixity. I yearn for a style ….well, more like the 23rd Psalm, for example. And now that I’ve moved away (finally!) from frantic Philadelphia to the calm sweet rationally displayed structure of downtown Media, where I sit serenely in my lovely little space at my big desk before an oversized window framing a magnificent old five-pronged Silver Ash, who know? My muses may coax me into allowing passage to all I feel and want to express.
Q. You have read your work at a number of venues in the Philadelphia area. Do you have a favorite venue?
I don’t have a favorite venue. The most spectacular was at the Sculpture Gardens in Hamilton New Jersey, their glass-domed auditorium a perfect container for the electrical storm raging outdoors as I read on the anniversary of my brother’s death in Viet Nam, August 25. Big Blue Marble Bookstore is cozy and colleagueial. The Science Institute, here in Media, is fun with all those stuffed animals! I especially love reading at Belmont Hills Library because Pat Rayfield is the perfect patron of the arts, regaling us with good food and encouraging us to remain well beyond ordinary library closing hours. I definitely disdain any venue, be it EVER so famous or hallowed, that is so interested in closing on time that it actually kicks you out early, depriving your open mic hopefuls of their few extra minutes on stage!
Q. In addition to the Mad Poets events you also host several open mics at The Seven Stones Café in Media, Allies Flower Basket and Tea Shop in Bala Cynwyd and a quarterly series at The Belmont Hills Library. Where do you get the time to run the series and continue to write?
Actually Emil, several months ago I turned both those venues over to different hosts: Bill Danks now hosts at Seven Stones, here in Media, and Lynn Blue now hosts at Tim and Allie’s. I still do the four seasonal-change events at Belmont Hills Library, although I had to cancel the June event featuring the wonderful John Amen because I could not do the work attendant upon publicizing and organizing as a consequence of the huge move I made from Philly to Media, selling and packing up a house occupied for almost thirty years and moving into a three-room apartment!
I also host the Lori Cosgrove Mad Poets Quarterly Series, the next of which comes up on July 13, and I’ll be hosting on July 6 for Mad Poets at the new Acoustic Milkboy Coffee in Bryn Mawr. Now listen closely while I reveal the Great Secret of Time: If you are lucky enough to get to be as old as I, you get to “retire” from paid work, and then you get to “play” for NO pay other than the delight and joy of being mistress of your own (remaining mortal) hours.
Q. Are you working on any new projects or poetry series?
I am definitely in the market for more individual readings engagements!!! Anybody looking to engage me? Check out a few of my poems on www.friendsofpoetry.com or email me requesting samples. I LOVE performing my work, solo or with other poets.
