GR poet adds Allen Ginsberg award to resume

Photo by Daniel Jackovino
Poet Ron Bremner relaxes in the Bloomfield Avenue Starbucks.

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Glen Ridge poet Ron Bremner is the recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. The award is given by the Poetry Center at Paterson County Community College.
In a recent interview, Bremner, 64, said the subject matter of his poetry changes from day to day.

“I write formal, metrical, surrealism, to something brand new to me — absurdism,” he said.

He has been writing for more than 50 years. At first, he wrote what he called very crude stuff.

“I wrote my first poem when I was 12 years old,” he said. “Unfortunately, I remember it.”

He always felt the need to write but poetry was not his aim. That belonged to fiction. But he realized over time that his poetry was improving.

“You can tell when what you write is good and you can tell when what you write is bad,” he said. “I would write a story, live with it, and after awhile I would realize it wasn’t going anywhere.”

He recalled one short story that did not go anywhere. He was taking creative writing at Queen of Peace, where he went to high school. The title of the story was “The Losers.”

“It was about two star-crossed lovers in the Old West,” he said. “The man accidentally kills a relation of the girl. I didn’t know where it would go from there.”

In college, he began to write more poetry, although to this day, he still writes short fiction pieces, about 1,000 words long. He attended Texas Christian University.

“I took all my savings to go to TCU for one year,” he said. “I transferred to Jersey City State College the last three years.”

The school is presently known as New Jersey City University.
Bremner started as an English literature major but did not foresee himself as a teacher. So he switched to journalism. He discovered he was no good at journalism and graduated with a BA in economics. He is currently a computer programmer with Citibank with the title of vice president.

He said the poetry he wrote in college was not very good. But in his early 20s, he recognized that the poetry was good.

“From college, the only poem I remember was “Your Cold Steel Eyes,” he said. “It was about a woman’s eyes. They were very striking to me.”
He recited.

“Your cold steel eyes have long ceased their flashing; Once they stabbed deep within me; But now they cannot cross the shields I have erected.”
He said women have always been a part of his subject matter and lately has written poems about well-known women.

“And of course, I always write about my wife,” he said. “Sometimes I disguise it so it’s not easily apparent. But she’s the inspiration.”
Bremner has been married 28 years.

He was first published in 1978, in an anthology put together for a festival in honor of William Carlos Williams. It was a poem about Roger Maris and his quest to surpass the home run record of Babe Ruth. It was titled “The Ghost Chaser.” Bremner recited.

“He chased a ghost to the crack of our whip; The fans drove him on but didn’t want him to catch him; Our simple plan: The ghost would vaporize between his fingers; Before delighted eyes and excited sighs; The stupid man.”
Although he is in an assortment of publications, Bremner has been paid only a few times for his poetry.

“All poetry journals run on a shoestring,” he said.
His Honorable Mention in the Ginsberg competition was for a poem titled “Slow Drip.” It is about a man, who is hospitalized, seeking spiritual redemption. It reads, in part: “I am in a hospital bed; It is an isolation room; I must be highly contagious; A fluid drip is attached to my arm; It drips slowly … deliberately; I don’t know what it is; But it feels good.”

The man is visited by his brother. “I tell Norman he just missed Dad; Dad visited along with Mom just minutes ago: Norman is astonished. Our father and mother have been dead for years.”

The man asks for a priest. “I tell him I haven’t confessed in forty years; But today I want to confess; I am born again, and my Friend Jesus was pretty cool yesterday afternoon; so now I want to confess.”

Bremner said this came from an actual experience.
“I’ve been an agnostic since one day in high school,” he said. “I was in confession and I told the priest I was going to leave. I told him he wasn’t doing anything for me. He said, ‘Don’t ruin your life, son,’ and I just left.”

The subject matter of the poem comes when he was in the hospital, in 2009, with a multi-organ infection.

“The doctor told my wife to prepare herself and I rediscovered Catholicism,” he said. “I actually called for a priest and made a confession.”

More medical problems followed. In 2010, he had a stroke; in 2011, a liver transplant. He wrote “Slow Drip” in 2014. He calls it one of his poems of survival — coming back from the brink.

Among the poetry he currently writes are those he calls absurdist. For these, he takes the playlist from a jazz station and reconstitutes it into poetry. The important thing, he said, is that the sequence in which the words are listed cannot be altered. For instance, one playlist had the record titles of “In Walked Burt,” followed by “Trust in Me” and “Take the A Train.” The poem was, “In walked Burt, who trusted in me as he took the A train.”

Bremner tries to write as often as he can but with his job that means mostly on Saturday and Sunday.

“I woke up this week with a complete poem in my head,” he said. “I had it showering and going into work.”

But he finally could remember only one line: “I peer into your alien complexion.” He said the poet G.K. Chesterton had a similar line and he wanted to work with it.
Bremner is associated with several local poetry groups and gives public performances. His stroke helped get him out of a rut and writing more, he said, and he began reading for audiences after his liver transplant. He found that he likes reading his poetry to people.

“Poetry can give people something to hang onto, something to read and believe in, something to hold onto,” he said.

He is currently working on two poems about Van Gogh. They are to be part of an anthology at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands.