The following appeared in the Feb. 1, 2024 print issue:
In December 2023, the New York Times Magazine announced that it was ending its poetry feature after nine years. We asked Brooklynites to submit their poems to be published here. Due to the popularity of this feature, the series has been extended from its original January 2024 dates. Want to see your words on these pages? Make haste and send your submissions to cstoddard@queensledger.com. This series will run as long as interest in it remains. Submission of poetry does not guarantee publication. All accepted poems will be formatted in a way that best aligns with our newspaper layout.
This week’s featured poets are Charles Elliott, Ann Bar-Dov, and Jacob R. Moses.
“Born at Bushwick Hospital”
By Charles Elliott
January 12, 1946 was the day I was born
at Bushwick Hospital in Brooklyn – a charity
hospital not taking cleanliness seriously.
The place where my mother contracted
an infection then called “lying-in sickness.”
That day, the Brooklyn Eagle reported (on page 4)
that J. Edgar Hoover, even then the long-serving
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
had endorsed 1946 Youth Week, sponsored
by the United Christian Youth Movement to promote
religious education. Hoover warned that churches
were reaching too few young people with their
indoctrinations and “this failure to make contact
with the citizens of tomorrow is producing
a fertile field for future crime. Youths too young
to vote accounted for 21.4 percent of the arrests
last year. Unless a concerted effort is made now
through the media of the church and the home,
these same juvenile delinquents may be
the hardened criminals of tomorrow.”
We lived in a third-floor walkup apartment at 472
Bainbridge Street until I was six years old.
Attended Bedford Central Presbyterian Church,
enjoyed the music of its beautiful big organ
(now wonderfully restored) until we joined
the White Flight to Levittown. My parents,
evangelical Christians, took me to church
in Brooklyn and elsewhere four times
each week for many years. But I was never
more embarrassed before my friends than
when my mother forced me to ride on a float
in the annual Sunday School parade
through our Brooklyn neighborhood. My parents
did everything they could to set me on the right path,
including shoving me into the aisle during
an altar call at a Baptist church, to make sure
I got “properly baptized.”
And yet, in 1971, I was the young journalist
(but no delinquent) who investigated J. Edgar
Hoover for columnist Jack Anderson. Rummaged
in Hoover’s trash at his home in Georgetown
(then no crime), staked out his house, interviewed
his neighbors and drew a scowl of disapproving
recognition from Hoover as he and Clyde Tolson
lunched at the Rib Room of the Mayflower Hotel
up on Connecticut in D.C.
The historic Bushwick Hospital building of my advent
still stands. At 41 Howard Avenue, the structure,
in an Italian Renaissance revival style, now
re-tasked to a purpose that some might suggest
is appropriate to my birthplace, re Hoover’s
remarks. By the time New York State acquired
it in 1968, the failed hospital was gone.
The building born again as the Bushwick
Nursing Home. But after that, according to
an October 29, 2014 news report: “It’s now
a placement center for juvenile delinquents.”
That mission renewed, continues. Now
a Youth Bureaus facility – the Ella McQueen
Reception Center for Boys and Girls.
My proud birthplace.
Charles Elliott’s poetry has appeared most recently in Synkroniciti Magazine and the American Poetry Journal. his work also has been featured in the Paris-based journal Levure littéraire, Chiron Review, Potomac Review, Aethlon, the New York Times, and two anthologies. Elliott reads his poems at https://www.youtube.com/user/beautyseer and administers https://www.facebook.com/The.Poetry.Cabin and a related Twitter account, @ThePoetryCabin. Elliott also has published three history books on Southern California topics and won awards for poetry, journalism, and fine art photography.
“Sheepshead Bay, 1976”
By Ann Bar-Dov
Sheepshead Bay, eight p.m.
Evening fog comes drifting in.
Familiar streets and houses, lost in a cloud…
Hoot of a foghorn, screaming gulls,
dirty green waves slapping at fishing boat hulls,
shouts of the fishermen echo across the water.
Old frame houses facing the bay
slide a little more sideways every day.
Screen doors and shutters creaking in the wind…
Sidewalk’s broken and buckled. Weeds grow in the cracks.
There’s sand in the gutters, and empty six-packs.
Someone’s old Chevy’s rusting by the side of the road.
I’d spend my days knocking ‘round Manhattan,
pushing and being pushed around.
Then I’d take that long train ride back to Sheepshead Bay,
walk around the streets and feel myself calm down.
Sheepshead Bay, eight p.m.
Evening fog comes drifting in.
Familiar streets and houses, lost in a cloud….
Sheepshead Bay, lost in a cloud.
Originally from Brooklyn, Ann Bar-Dov has lived in Israel since 1976 and in the Galilee since 1983. After 38 years spent teaching everything from kindergarten to yoga to Public Health, she has finally retired and can devote real time to writing.
“Sheepshead Bay, 2020”
By Jacob R. Moses
Took the Q train to
Roll-N-Roaster just so I
could get lemonade
Jacob R. Moses is a poet and spoken word artist from Staten Island, NY. Publications featuring his work span 18 countries. He is the author of the full-length poetry book, Grimoire (iiPublishing, 2021). Jacob is a recent graduate from Southern New Hampshire University with an MA in English and Creative Writing.
