My 2024 Year in Review (According to LinkedIn)

Above is my "2024 LinkedIn Rewind," and following is the accompanying text written/produced by Coauthor (a new AI tool... although, honestly, I'm pretty sure I posted there more than 20 times 🙂):

In 2024, I discovered that storytelling happens in many languages - through corporate communications, community service, poetry, and increasingly, through the lens of my camera.

This year brought opportunities to share stories across different mediums. My church photography series found a home at the Middletown Arts Center, while my written work appeared in the New Jersey Bards Poetry Review. Behind the lens at the Al Smith Dinner, I witnessed how photography can capture moments of community service that words alone cannot express.

Three posts that captured this journey of integrated storytelling:

"Four of my NJ church photos are on display this month at Middletown Arts Center"
On how visual storytelling through community spaces creates lasting connections
https://lnkd.in/etidDGwr

"Three highlights from a memorable March..."
Where corporate expertise and creative expression meet to serve communities
https://lnkd.in/eDC7Z3GC

"Our announcement today about the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation's support"
How institutional support transforms communities across New York State
https://lnkd.in/e3KVRyCT

Looking ahead to 2025: I'm focused on deepening the connection between professional communications and creative storytelling, particularly through visual media and community narratives. Because sometimes the most powerful stories are told without words.

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Get your own 2024 "LinkedIn Rewind" by going to coauthor.studio in your browser... and, PS, the "Jim" referenced in the graphic is the one-and-only Jim Gerace (who always encouraged me to explore new tech).

Images and Haikus

Recently, every Monday, I've begun posting my photos, using original haikus as captions. Here are a few examples.

If you want to follow along, check out my Instagram or Bluesky (new) feeds. I'll follow you back there.

You attract full moons
My center of gravity
You cause the sunrise

This haiku, for you.
A memory at Christmas.
Music in the air.

(In front of Irving Berlin's former residence in NYC)

Wizards are sleeping
Emerald City at dawn
There’s no place like home

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PS... An Abecedarian Haiku (first letter of each line in alphabetical order), with an image from London, posted at year-end.

Another year gone

But I offer hope: this poem

Creates a new world

How Important Is Structure in Poetry?

My photo of Emerald City, viewed from New Jersey

What makes a good poem?

One answer may lie in the intensity of every word.

And perhaps one way to wrangle intensity is through structure -- even if it's loose or derivative. The form might help a poet prune and focus.

Writing recently about ghosts, I drafted one as a "sonnet," although only in the sense that there are 10 syllables in each of its 14 lines.

Then I drafted another as a trilogy of Japanese death poems. These are often written in the form of a tanka -- 5 lines totaling 31 syllables (5-7-5-7-7).

Death poems should be emotionally neutral (according to Wikipedia), and "it is considered inappropriate to mention death explicitly; rather, metaphorical references such as... autumn or falling cherry blossom suggest the transience of life."

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Casual Ghosts

All my ghosts are casual, taking note

Of what inspires me to write, taunting

Me, sipping tea. We wander here and there,

Reading the classics in the afternoons.

Leaving this room for a minute or two,

I return to find pages blown open

To particular chapters meant for me.

Life lessons offered from beyond the grave.

As I re-read “The Catcher in the Rye”

Blithe spirits, steeped in the literature

Of murderous defense, cloud my judgement,

Call me phony, and judge my poetry.

So I write to manifest the undead

In the dissonance of unrhymed sonnets.

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In Memorium

I.

My last meal with Dad…

A cheap Italian restaurant,

With Mom, over-dressed.

Before his sunset, he spilled

Mashed potatoes on his tie.

II.

My last memory…

Mom’s napkin, wiping him clean

To the amusement

Of men dining in t-shirts.

Dad’s humiliated face.

III.

My retribution…

I will wear that tie again

After Mom’s last sleep.

It waits, hangs in my closet.

Dad’s ghost, indelibly stained.

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I don't know. More simply, I could match haikus with photos I've taken. Then, what I try to convey will be less dense and more relatable.

In that vein, I plan to post one haiku/image every Monday morning on Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads. I welcome you to join me there. I like to follow people back and learn from others, although I get discouraged by all the bots.

I posted my first haiku earlier this week, to accompany the image at the top of this page:

Wizards are sleeping

Emerald City at dawn

There's no place like home

If AI Wrote This Poem...

 

Allow me to explain this Microsoft AI-generated graphic.

Have you ever asked AI to generate a poem?

I do, sometimes. Here's an example:

AI, Write a Short Poem About My Wife's Birthday

Of all the gifts that life could give,
Your love is the one I cherish to live.
Today we celebrate the day you were born,
A heart so gentle, a spirit reborn.

With every laugh and every smile,
You light my world and make it worthwhile.
Happy Birthday, my love, my heart,
Together forever, never to part.

That's not what I gave her, of course. I could have bought a Hallmark card with as much genuine sentiment. Instead, I opted for my own creation:

Roses Are Red

And yellow and pink and white.

Violets are the color at the end of the visible spectrum of light.

Sugar is addictive.

And so are you.

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To me, poetry is not predictable. It's not homogenized. It's not easy.

I was thinking of this while watching TV on a recent Saturday morning, flipping past a PBS beg-a-thon that used the new documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Above Us Only Sky," as bait.

I watched a bit about Yoko's first poetry collection, "Grapefruit," which famously includes an instruction to "burn this book after you've read it."

Then I watched a few Bugs Bunny cartoons. They were wonderfully creative (as, of course, were John and Yoko). I laughed and thought about how random and beautiful life can be.

I am sure AI would never, if left to its own devices, be able to create something that would equate the same two things in context. That thought comforts me.

So I asked Microsoft to auto-generate an image of Yoko Ono eating a grapefruit while watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. It's the monstrosity at the top of this post.

Then I wrote this poem:

If AI Wrote This Poem

If AI wrote this poem,

Would it randomly quote Yoko Ono?

Would it use cartoonish pentameter,

and dare ask me in rhyme to burn this poem

before hiding its intent in hexameter?

Would it do this?

Would it take the inner sanctum

of everything I’ve written,

lock it in a box with me in a fetal position,

and drive a sword though it, nearly severing my head?

Would it also have the temerity to do this?

Call me its bosom chum

as it drives another sword to ensure I was dead?

This second try narrowly misses my heart as I clutch all my words,

then tumble head over heels, cast recklessly down the stairs.

Repeat in Edward G. Robinson’s voice:

What a pal

What a pal

What a pal

AI will never take me alive. I dare it a third try.

I’ll give it one word; take two for me.

Then laugh as I squirt a random grapefruit

into its smug, pansophical eye. 

Yeah, some poets can take it, see.

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Now that I've written this and published it here, my words are fair game for versions of even more pervasive and powerful versions of AI.

After all, if nothing else, AI's existence is a reminder that we are all part of something bigger than ourselves. Whether we like it or not.

So, in closing, let me warn the future robots of this:

“Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this poem, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited.”

Hi, My Name Is Bob

Photo credit: Talena Lachell Queen

Here I am in this photo, dressed as a poet for Halloween, reading at the open mic at the Prototype 237 artists' community space in Paterson, NJ.

Thank you, Word Seed Inc., for hosting this event among so many others this October, Paterson's Poetry Month.

In the first event I attended, on the lawn of Dey Mansion in Wayne, I listened to Isabel Cruz introduce herself through a poem.

I've copied that idea below, as a sacrificial poet and pretender.

Happy Halloween season, everyone! Click on the links above to learn more about Isabel and these two great organizations, and please allow me to introduce myself, I'm no man of wealth and taste...

Hi, My Name Is Bob

       Introducing myself in 40 lines

 

Hi, my name is Bob. My father’s name is Bob,

but I am neither his junior nor his equal.

I am a page, not performance, poet. I write from the heart,

but much of my life is trite and cliched.

 

I love to celebrate, but I can’t dance.

I love art, but I can’t draw.

I love music, but I can’t sing.

I gave up on my boyhood accordion and on my Nonna’s inherited violin.

I play Easy Piano songs.

I once ran the New York City marathon, virtually, during Covid.

I am polite in museum crowds in front of every Van Gogh.

I once stood alone in front of the Pieta in Rome.

 

I have an alliterative love for photography, poetry, and penguins.

I have an irrational love for redheads, Mr. Met, and New York.

I revolve around a distaff pentagonal sun: my wife, 2 daughters, sister, and mom,

grounded by the grave, gravitational memories of my father and his Italian parents.

I believe baseball is better than football.

Unlike Vince Lombardi, I don’t believe winning is the only thing.

Like Crash Davis, and despite all evidence to the contrary,

I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

 

3 favorite books: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

3 favorite movies: Godfather 2 or Paddington 2, Casablanca or Airplane, The Wizard of Oz or the first 10 minutes of Up

3 favorite poems: Dover Beach, Annabel Lee, Sailing to Byzantium

3 favorite songs: American Tune, Mr. Brightside, Thunder Road

 

Since the age of 50, I have been invisible to women.

I like cats better than dogs.

I have always been invisible to men under the age of 50.

Dogs like me, but cats ignore me.

 

I once wrote an unpublished novel,

and I’ve always collected discarded coins.

Like my Nonno, I believe both contain magic:

what I have written and what I have hoarded.

 

You have my admiration… If you have no entitlements.

If you are an outcast. If you write well.

You have my love… If you are kind to others.

If you laugh easily. If you write well.

 

Finally, I sign this self portrait

proclaiming eternity to be as unfathomable to me as Heaven,

and believing Earth to abide a pantheon of false gods.

I live simply to honor my father’s name, the Great and Powerful Bob.