Pacernick, Gary 1941-

PERSONAL:

Born May 9, 1941, in Detroit, MI; son of Edward (in sales) and Sally Pacernick; married Dorothea Anton, June 4, 1968 (died September 30, 2002); children: Jennifer, Eden. Ethnicity: "Jewish." Education: University of Michigan, B.A. (with honors), 1963; University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, M.A., 1966; Arizona State University, Ph.D., 1969. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dayton, OH. Office—Department of English Language and Literatures, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, OH 45435-0001; fax: 937-775-2707. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Wright State University, Dayton, OH, assistant professor, 1969-74, associate professor, 1974-81, professor of English, 1981—. Ohio Arts Council, member of literary panel.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Phillips Poetry Award, Stone Country, 1977, for "O Mao."

WRITINGS:

Credence (poetry), illustrated by Sidney Chafetz, Professor H. Quinn Press, 1974.

Wanderers and Other Poems, illustrated by David Leach, Prasada Press (Cincinnati, OH), 1985.

The Jewish Poems, Wright State University Press (Dayton, OH), 1985.

Memory and Fire: Ten American Jewish Poets, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 1989.

Something Is Happening (poetry), Edwin Mellen (Lewiston, NY), 1991.

Sing a New Song: American Jewish Poetry since the Holocaust, American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati, OH), 1991.

(Editor) Talking Together: Letters of David Ignatow, 1946-1990, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 1992.

Summer Psalms (poetry), illustrated by Harvey Daniels, [Brighton, England], 1999.

Meaning & Memory: Interviews with Fourteen Jewish Poets, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 2001.

Gary Pacernick: Greatest Hits, 1973-1996, Pudding House Press (Johnstown, OH), 2006.

A Caregiver's Response: Our Shared Journey (poetry), PublishAmerica (Baltimore, MD), 2006.

Author of the plays Fourth Thursday and (with Robert Britton) I Want to Write a Jewish Poem. Work represented in anthologies, including Traveling America with Today's Poets, edited by David Kherdian, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1977; Voices within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets, Avon (New York, NY), 1980; The Spirit that Moves Us Reader, Spirit that Moves Us Press (Iowa City, IA), 1982; Ghosts of the Holocaust: An Anthology of Poetry by the Second Generation, Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI), 1989; and Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Texas Tech University Press (Lubbock, TX), 1991. Contributor of poetry to magazines, including Choice, Mixed Voices, Poetry Now, and American Poetry Review. Editor of Images, 1976-90.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gary Pacernick once told CA: "I got my start rather late as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, when Allen Tate took an interest in my poetry. Since then I have been influenced most perhaps by the less formal, more open poetry of the tradition going back to Whitman and continuing through Williams, the Jewish objectivists, Ginsberg and the Beats, et cetera. I was also moved by my father's death to explore and discover sources in my Russian-Jewish family heritage. The Bible has always been an influence and inspiration. I wish to capture dramatic human voices and scenes, the kind of everyday earthy experiences that most people can empathize with."

Pacernick later added: "Since the publication of my Jewish poems as a book and their production as a play on stage and on public television, I have continued to write on the Jewish theme. My most recent works in this vein are a series of psalms. I have also written a number of dream parables in the form of prose poems and very brief narratives. My critical studies and my interviews are additional attempts to research the development and transformations of Jewishness in the late twentieth century and, now, the twenty-first. My aim remains to capture dramatic human voices and scenes.

"My writing process is to write almost every day as freely and openly as I can, hoping to put down something significant that I can then work on and revise to my satisfaction. I believe that I was chosen to write about Jewishness, et cetera, rather than choosing my own subject. The words speak and sing through me."

More recently, Pacernick added: "A Caregiver's Response: Our Shared Journey is a memoir of my last year with my wife Dotti. It describes the process that we shared as patient and caregiver with our children, nurses, nurse's aides, rabbis, minister, therapists, friends, relatives, and our five-year-old grandson. It was and is a journey, as life is a journey, that always and inevitably involves death. And so death entered our lives. These poems serve as a being-there in language during the months that Dotti lived and died, my life's partner, whom I wanted to flower forever. I was changed in ways that I would never have imagined. This caregiver's response is part of an ongoing attempt at healing and hope."