October 3, 2001
VENTNOR- Lenny the
poet writes from a tiny basement apartment where he and his mother live with
enough to get by, but without a phone, computer or typewriter.
The
poet simply puts pen to notepad.
Lenny
Bloom has never been published, but in the past three weeks his work has been
seen and heard more and more in this small working-class neighborhood.
Each
day since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bloom, 26, despite health problem he
doesn’t care much to talk about – a cardiac condition as well
As
cerebral palsy - walks up and down the streets here with patriotic
Poetry.
Bloom
says his words moved one police officer to ask him for a copy to
post
on the bulletin board at headquarters.
Marge
Paone, who runs a Ventnor avenue thrift
store, pasted a copy of
Lenny's
work in her storefront window next to an American flag.
When
asked about the work she said she liked it very much.
'Tell
that boy to drop off a few more copies" she said.
And
a bicyclist stopped in front of the public library recently heard Lenny
reading
from the steps and cried.
"I
can't join the service," Bloom says. "So this is my thing."
For
generations back to the 1860s, the Bloom family has served in the
military.
Lenny
proudly tells a story of how his grandfather, Charlie Bloom, jumped
atop
a German tank in WWII, then knocked on the door. When it opened,
Lenny
says, Charlie dropped in a grenade and ran off just in time.
His
mother, Deborah, talks of Blooms who fought in the Spanish-American
War
and the Civil War.
But
Lenny can't join the military.
So
he did what everyone did in the wake of the terrorist attacks. He
watched
television, shocked.
He
was saddened because while he knows Charlie Bloom once took him to
New
York City he was too young too
remember.
Lenny
gave blood. He gave food. And he donated what money he could.
But
then Lenny did his thing. In a shirt and tie with a red, white and blue
pin
and a stars and striped cap, he began walking up to total strangers on Ventnor
Avenue.
"Hi
I'm Lenny," he tells them
"I
wrote a poem."
He
gets all kind of looks.
He
goes on.
"It's
about what the terrorists did."
Then
Lenny starts reading:
"A
terrible tragedy has befallen the nation,
"This
evil is beyond our words explanation …"
They
listen for three or four minutes it takes for Bloom to finish his
poem
with the words, "God bless and save our country, Amen"
Bloom
says he knows that he no Robert Frost but thinks people seem to
like
his words, or at least the fact that he's out there reading them.
Two
weeks ago he took his work into City
Hall.
At the monthly City Commission meeting, the
first since the terrorist
attacks,
Bloom and his mother were the only members of the public on
hand.
They
sat in the front row and waited for the public comment period to
Begin.
When it did, Bloom walked up to the microphone and read his poetry
and
quickly sat right back down.
After
the meeting ended, one by one the city officials came up to Bloom to
Shake
his hand.
"Good
job," said City Solicitor John
Scott Abbott.
"Great
work, Lenny," said Mayor Timothy Kreischer.
Bloom
shrugs it off.
"It's
nice to hear nice job, but it's not about that at all," he says.
"It's
about what my grandmother used to say, 'Bad things happen to good
people,
but we go on.'"
(Lenny
Bloom's poetry can be seen at the ARC of Atlantic County Thrift
Shop
at 6409 Ventnor Ave., Ventnor, or heard wherever he happens to be.)