Collected Poetry & Prose (with Punch!)
Hop aboard. Please don’t strap-in quite yet…’cause before you know it you’ll be stepping off a rusty steamboat’s tippy gangway. Boots still dusted with foreign soil just fled from, an immigrant family timidly tip-toes onto a new world. Soon, stirred into the melting pot. Grabbing for any foothold that’ll hopefully present itself. Finally settled-in, now rooted to their Bronx neighborhoods our post-war “Baby Boomers” come forth.
Your all-inclusive ticket - a consistent voice, allows you to kick back and ride Express. Or, feel free to hop on and off at any Local stop within this eclectic collection. Be it angst-tinged family history, relatable “Boomer” memoir, creative nonfiction, &/or random tales from unexpected far-flung times and places, you’ll encounter a melange of poetry and prose using visceral language (with Punch!) View vivid scenes; of city kids learning life lessons on the block, youthful confusion and conflict surrounding religiosity, close encounters with a once funky N.Y.C., and a Clinton H.S. grad leaving home for a college upstate during turbulent times. You’ll find flights of fancy to artsy, jazzy locales. Toss in the personal gettin’-’n-spendin’, married with children, then caring for aging parents stuff. Finally, the Bronx Boomer Boy, a white-haired Grandpa put out to pasture, reflects.
“Bronx Boomer Boy includes a compilation of artful narrative that will catch your heart, make you cry and leave you marveling at how humans manage to make it through each day. As it says, grab on to a strap and enjoy the ride.”
Janine Fallon Mower- author: Images of America Woodstock and Woodstock Revisited
“Mark Goldstein’s style is gripping, his stories are astonishing, vivid, and meaningful for every generation and culture in today’s challenging world. Whether read in order or at random, they will amaze, delight, educate, inspire, and last indelibly in your heart, mind, and soul. Don’t miss this timely gem.”
C. Gardner - Poet, Artist, Editor - Boiseville, N.Y.
“For the Boomer audience these pieces have a nostalgic appeal that is somewhat unique because they bring back memories of an era, but not sugar coated or idealized. I remember that period in a sort of bittersweet, semi-serious way even though I was a child. Thought that was just me, but these pieces make me feel differently….like that was the collective consciousness of the time. Lots of new stuff (like TV antennas and The Pancake House) but lots of timeless stuff too, like heartache and struggle.”
E. LaStella - Artist - Rhinebeck, N.Y.
Mark Goldstein, born in 1950, grew up in the Fordham section of the Bronx. He attended P.S. 33, J.H.S. 79, DeWitt Clinton H.S. and graduated from N.Y.S. College/Oneonta with a degree in English. Mark participated in writing workshops at The New School, The 92nd St. Y. and The Woodstock Senior Writers Group. His work has appeared in Bloom, The Ekphrastic Review, Perspectives, Threshold, and Culinary Origami.
