Gary Pacernick
Contributor

TVBC
GARY PACERNICK is the author of Something Is Happening: Poems and The Jewish Poems, a collection that has been adapted for the stage and for Public Television. His poems have been featured in a number of anthologies and published in journals such as The American Poetry Review, North American Review, Poetry Now, and Poetry East, as well as in such national Jewish journals as Judaism, Tikkun, and Midstream. He has also published the critical studies Memory and Fire: Ten American Jewish Poets and Sing a New Song: American Jewish Poetry Since the Holocaust. Pacernick, who holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State University, currently teaches Creative Writing and Modern American Poetry at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Home / Gary Pacernick

I have no Jerusalem.
Even my Russia weeping but strong
Image of my prophetic grandfather is gone
America was my sullen father.
A poor salesman, he took me as far
As he could, then left me
Standing at the edge of space.
Seeing no candles but stars
I turned back to the earth
My mother calling my name.

Why I Write About the Holocaust / Gary Pacernick

When I was a boy I lived among people
Who wore the SS insignia
Branded on their arms,
And I felt the presence
Of those who disappeared
In the flaming dark;
Could feel their shame as they
Stood naked in gas chambers
Pounding against walls—
Reduced to integers in
A mad equation for murder.
Kneeling to the earth, I blotted
Out my shadow with my body
And felt darkness drawing me down
Because mankind’s machinations
Meant nothing to me now.
As I walked among survivors
I saw smoke rise in their sad eyes;
I tasted the bitter herbs of their memories;
I heard their silent screams.

For Nick / Gary Pacernick

I thought I saw him the other night.
We asked each other how we were.
His skin was pale, his eyes
Dazed and distant, yet he seemed
The same as when he was my student:
Strong, darkly handsome, but shy
With bright but somber eyes.
When he read his stories to the class,
His words, penetrating and pungent,
Made us laugh to see his part
Of the world from a strange new slant.
I will savor his promise and bless
What he created and who he was
Free now to soar beyond danger.