Tenderness. It was forty-seven years ago <br />and Bernie Strempek and I were in this bar <br />in downtown Detroit watching this <br />beautiful second-rate jazz singer <br />and Bernie started to talk <br />about tenderness. <br />His father had abandoned this family of four <br />and so his mother worked nights <br />at Ford Rouge and she knew <br />Bernie wanted to become a poet <br />and she totally supported that. <br />Bernie was a guy of amazing smarts <br />who seemed almost too gentle <br />and delicate for this world <br />in which he did not long remain. <br />I didn’t know the word tenderness <br />but when Bernie talked of it <br />I thought wow, I could use some of that. <br /> <br />* <br /> <br />[From his conversations]<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-tribute-to-philip-levine-for-hanque/
