Pacernick's "The Jewish Poems"

[ned]

Hello,

Has anyone here ever read poetry by Gary Pacernick? He's well-known for his famous interviews of Jewish poets such as Allen Ginsberg and others, but less known for his own writing.

I've chosen his chapbook for a project in my American Poetry course, and am required to include critical analysis from a couple of outside sources. I haven't found a single criticism anywhere, and even our research librarian hasn't been able to come up with anything.

By the way, the book of poems is wonderful, powerful, even sublime. He's a creative writing teacher at Wright State University in Ohio. The poems were written over a period of a few years, then collected into this book. They address family, immigration to America by a number of speakers, and children of immigrants. They also speak of the Holocaust, and a number of other commonalities among Jews and Jewish writers, artists and poets.

[Sarita]

First I checked with my university's literary crit department online. They only have a handful of references for Pacernick, most of which were published by OSU. Then, I went to OSU's library CAT and found a few more. Here's the link:

http://osu.worldcat.org/search?q=Gary+Pacernick&fq=&sd=desc&qt=first_page

It looks like you might be able to find a little something on him in the American Poetry Review? I'm sure OSU would scan and send you materials if you asked nicely or paid them to do it :) I've found, through my literary crit classes, that if you get your hands on the writer's own books, often times there's a bit of commentary in the preface or editors notes and sometimes in the end notes. Worth a shot.

ETA: You could also email him directly and tell him about the assignment. I'm sure he has his hands on some criticism. http://www.wright.edu/cgi-bin/ldap.cgi