Welcome
Thank you for visiting Michael Bratnick’s website. Michael wanted his writings to be disseminated through the internet so that many people could have easy access to them. Before he died, he said how important it was that those of you reading his work be able to have conversations with others about how his work affects you. He wanted to inspire you, jostle you awake, make you laugh and enjoy the world, wrestle with your demons, be in awe of this universe, and discover who you truly are.
I carry the same commitment and look forward to our dialogue.
Warmly, Raechel Bratnick
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We look forward to hearing from you.
Raechel
It’s great to see the website up and running. It’s beautiful. I found myself reading some of michaels poems the other day after being so frustrated with this month in general. It really helped.
This is a website I will visit often. Thank you. What a gift to have Michael’s poems when the “calling” comes…and to hear him read is deeply touching.
In high school and college I never got higher than a C in any course that included poetry. We speak of “Relationship” in IKH/ASOS and I must say that my relationship to poetry – even to this day – is that it is something that makes me feel “small” in that I don’t “understand” it with the faculties I use to make sense out of the world (mostly in a protective sense).
It is interesting that I would contrast this with my love for the Pathwork Lectures – something that Michael and I probably shared and had in common. Yet half of Michael’s poems leave me berating myself for not “understanding them”.
Funny thing is that I (or another place with me) knows that it is good and original poetry. Something is “Really Real”. I believe that it is the relationship with Michael’s poems on a deeper level within me that knows that, or perhaps the common experiences or inner places they evoke.
Sort of like when I read “Kabbalistic Healing” for the first time. Probably I live mostly in the Yetziric and Assiyatic worlds yet something in me resonated deeply with the Briatic consciousness that became “A World” from Jason’s writings.
It would probably be good for me if I could redefine my relationship to Michael’s poetry by acknowledging the place I am in now and somehow find more room for compassion in it. As in the Roman analogy, all roads seem to lead to this plce for me. I suppose that would also bring me more into a Briatic space that would be compatible with his poetry.
Finally, I will seek to have a relationship with the place within me that knows how truthful Michael’s poetry is. This could conceivably open up new/old worlds for me.
Dear Stephen and others who have similar struggles in understanding poetry,
Here is a suggestion: Pick any poem, but try reading it a very different way than you were taught in school. Read it, but don’t try to figure it out. Instead, let yourself be drawn to any line or group of lines that attract you. Let yourself find a line or phrase that you connect to. Stay with that. Ruminate on it. Play with it. Meditate on it. Don’t worry about the meaning of the whole poem. This line is an entry point to a personal experience. It will expand your own awareness. For that is the whole point. Not to discern what the poet was saying, but to find out something true about yourself.
Raechel
Raechel,
I will play with what you have presented above. Thank you.
Stephen
The web site is beautiful. What a tribute to a wonderful man and poet.
Dear Raechel,
Thais is a beautiful web site. Thank you for sharing “The Blue Thred” and “Music”. As I read through Michael’s biography and your beautiful memorial statement, I marveled at the breadth of his interests, creativity, and accomplishments. I began to fret about my own difficulties expressing my creativity and relishing the world. Than I read “The Blue Thread” and realized that Michael had similar obsticles. I love the idea of “looking for answers in simple places”.
Love,
Edie
I had the privilege to work with Michael many years ago. He was my helper for about two years. He was a very sweet, compassionate and loving soul. His intuitive and gentle guidance made a big difference in my life at the time, clearing the confusion and empowering me to be who I really am. I am deligthed to meet him again after all these years through his subtle, sensitive and poignant poetry.
I haven’t seen Mikey (that was how we called him), since the late 1950s. Today, Marty, a mutual friend our ours, googled his full name and learned that Mikey is now on the other side. He sent me the link to his/Raechel’s web site. And now, alone, I did some catching up.
Funny, I haven’t seen Marty since the late 1950s either. I found and reconnected with Marty on the web a couple years ago and we’ve been emailing each other almost daily ever since. We should have coffee.
Mikey, Marty and I lived on Fairmount Place in the Bronx where it meets Southern Boulevard. As with the other guys on the block, we were only months apart. There were about ten of us. Gerry Hersher, who lived in the same building with Mikey on the corner along with another boy whose name escapes me, Gary Stollack in the building directly across from Mikey’s, Gerry Fisher and Marty Feldman and Stuart Prizer who lived in the next building (883 Fairmount) up the hill, Morty Stopnick and Arnie Feig who lived across the street at 886, and Walter Block and I (Mike Selnick) lived two buildings up at 860. Perhaps somebody else can fill in another name or two for me.
More than anything else, we played stick ball. Mikey could hit and he could run. He always was one of the first to be picked when sides were “chosing up.” Fairmount was a one-way street. With cars parked on both sides, there was one driving lane. Home plate was the manhole cover between 883 and 886. Second base was the next manhole cover up the hill. The roadside front tire of a parked car on opposite sides served as first and third. It was a long narrow field, but we had the best of times growing up on it.
Mikey’s smile was unforgetable. I saw today, some ten million smiles later, that it was photographed and posted on his website. It’s exactly the same. Then I listened on the site to his audio recordings of his own poems. The sound of his voice, too, at first is exactly the same. But listening more, his voice has noticeable added ringing qualities. It conveys a crisp strength of character, a distinct self-confidence, the sound of a leader, the depth of a benevelent sage. And his poetry reaffirms the same qualities in his thought and spirit.
Mikey could also play a good game of poker on the roof, away from our parents. (Don’t tell anybody. We played for real money on the roofs of Fairmount Place when we were only 11, 12, . . .) We were close buddies. We all played Johnny on the Poney, basketball, baseball, even dice; we tossed coins, told jokes, laughed, ice skated, beat the guys from Ellesmere Street by so many runs that we felt badly afterward, and then made it through high school and college. Mikey, you did good. All those wonderful careers! All that adventure and discovery! I look forward in the future to walking again with you, shoulder to shoulder, my brother. We’ll go hiking like we used to. We’ll go on those long bike rides. We’ll go to the beach. Too bad they didn’t have sunscreens back then, right! We’ll go fishing together again. We’ll watch the world series together. Play some poker. I love ya, man. God bless you. You’re the real mcCoy.
–mike selnick