Poet & Writer

A lifelong New Englander, Jeff Bernstein watches the seasons slowly turn from a hillside in Central Vermont with an occasional foray into town or even across the border into Canada. The dogs maintain sanity and provide all forms of relief. Poetry is his favorite and earliest art form (he can’t draw a whit or hold a tune).

Latest Collection

Jeff Bernstein’s poems are free and alive; they are uniquely their own, but they belong to everyone; they both trouble and comfort; they are foreign yet familiar; they are ordinary and sublime; they embody and celebrate the corporeal authority all of us hold when we remember what it truly means to be alive.
— Juliet Patterson, poet

Awards & Recognitions

  • for "The Ancient Ways", Homebound Publications Poetry Prize (2023)

  • Nightfall, Full of Light, for the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award for a full-length collection

  • for “A Short Guide to the Proper Treatment of Maryland Blue Crabs, ”Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Contest

  • for “Slow Courting,” Volume One

Quote Source

Jeff Bernstein places dappled flashes of vision against the darkness of the universe, small glimmers that hint at the grandeur of the whole.