Storyteller of the Week

 Tina Hacker

  

 Tina Hacker and husband Lynn Norton

Tina Hacker’s life has been filled with some major surprises. She majored in music at the University of Illinois, intending to become a choral conductor. But life took a surprise turn. She realized she did not have the kind of musical ear needed for that profession.

She changed her major to English and wrote her very first poem.  Her friends liked it which was all the encouragement she needed. Writing poetry became Tina’s passion. By the time a year went by, she was published in two university journals and invited to give a reading at the University of Wisconsin. All of this launched her lifelong love of words, especially poetry.

Then another surprise happened. Instead of becoming an English teacher, Tina entered the world of commercial editing and writing in Kansas City, MO. During her 40-year career, she won both Silver and Bronze Omni Awards, wrote 15 children’s books and retired with the title of Editorial Director. Always active in women’s issues, Tina became a national vice-president of Women in Communications, Inc. and won a Matrix Honor Award.

Poetry continues to play a major role in her life. She edits poetry for a national magazine for military veterans, Veterans’ Voices. And she helped revive a local gem--The Writers Place—the center of the community’s literary scene. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Tina has authored a poetry chapbook, Cutting It, and two longer collections, Listening to Night Whistles and most recently, GOLEMS.

The third book brings another surprise. It is only the second poetry collection written about this helpful Jewish folk character and the first to feature several different golems—ever! Many of Tina’s poems center on Jewish topics, especially the Holocaust. And there’s one more surprise. At the age of 50, Tina married Mr. Lynn Norton and calls herself the oldest first-time bride.

Comments by Sharon Waller Knutson

I fell in love with Tina Hacker’s poetry when I read this poem on Your Daily Poem in 2013:

Listening to Southern Women

My friends' words amble toward me in sentences
brimming with leisure and graceful as a gauzy summer dress.
We are four women having coffee on a warm Alabama morning,
and I am a guest from Chicago sharing the comfort of caffeine.
 
My conversation is like a strand of glass beads,
each word tightly tied to the other, a string of plosive sounds.
I pause to breathe, every thought in place, and wait for a reply.
 
Their words undulate close to me, browsing the beads.
They hold up one and then another.
The women's thoughts glide over mine with unhurried ease
as they consider and savor my meaning,
taking time to sip some coffee,
to admire the garden, to pause before moving on.
 
My mouth opens and words rush out
to fill each second of their silence.
I complete their sentences, guess conclusions.
My sentences push and pull.
Theirs wait with polite patience.
 
While I struggle into stillness, a cat stretches at my feet.
And once more, the humid air around me
fills with the strolling interplay
of words and ideas that find time sweet.

First appeared in Potpourri

I laughed out loud when I read this Tina Hacker poem and wish I had written it:

How to Avoid Appearing in a Poem

Don’t be friends with a poet. Don’t even
say hello to one you pass on the street.
Otherwise your chances of avoiding
poetic fame sink lower than a guy
stealing from the collection plate.
If you’re a poet’s relative,
you’re poetic booty.
Better than the Crown Jewels
because your luster can be captured
on paper without alarms going off.
Even if your name is changed,
everyone will know, “It’s you, isn’t it?”
If you share some coffee
and conversation with a starving poet,
people will soon be texting condolences.
“Didn’t know you had it so bad.”
If you live on a farm,
the whole spectrum of nature,
from plants that grow in Mongolia
to rivers that ran dry a century ago,
will be described in words that rhyme
with your name--first and last.
Sometimes a poet will ask permission
to write about you. Don’t answer.  
Any utterance will signal your acquiescence.
Tell everyone you hate poetry.
Become the Scrooge of verse, free or otherwise.
Poets will shun your company.
Will they write about you?  Of course.

First appeared in Silver Birch Press

Since we met in March, I’ve discovered Tina and I published poems in some of the same journals and that some of her poems are fiction. Her poems are so authentic I couldn’t tell the difference. I was smitten with these sassy smart poems and am pleased to share them.


First Lesson

"Pull harder," I demanded
as Mother combed my hair
into a knot high on my head,
forcing each fractious strand
into choreographed symmetry.
"That's how real ballerinas
wear their hair," I told her.
 
Dressed in a black leotard,
wearing shoes the dusty color
of a worn crayon,
I stood with other
kindergarten swans,
twisting inside and out,
trying to unravel a chaos of steps.
 
That evening,
I showed Mother a plie, a pointed toe,
first position, second.
She tugged the elastic band
from my hair,
stroked slowly through the tangles
splashing stray wisps into the air,
relishing the abandon of my curls.
 
Only night saw me
raise my arms into the air,
sweep them back and forth
to imitate curtains following
a routine of breezes.
I gathered my hair in both fists
and pulled upward till my eyebrows
stood en pointe.

First appeared in Orange Room Review

Becoming Prince Valiant  

By the time I was eight years old,
I suspected
I could never be a princess.
After all,
Cinderella, Snow White
and Sleeping Beauty
married without a chuppah.

So playing with my Prince Valiant
Shield, Scabbard and Sword
was the next best thing.
I could joust in Camelot
with seven-year-old Anthony
He had a set, too.
An even match
on Chicago’s concrete fairgrounds.

Like King Arthur’s knights,
Anthony was given a quest.
He begged me to believe
in Jesus each day before we
unsheathed our weapons.
The nuns told him Jews like me
went to Hell.

But when our silver-painted swords
were raised in challenge,
we both forgot I was doomed.
Simply had fun as swords    
hit raised shields embossed
with plastic emeralds and rubies.     
Little hope to be a princess,
enough to be a knight
with a fighting chance.

First appeared in Cutting It


Myth of My Birth

Dad liked to gamble.
The story chronicles his
eight weeks of non-stop luck.
Three dollars won each day
from a Chicago bookie, exactly
enough to pay the hospital’s
daily fee for the incubator
that kept his daughter alive.

What if Dad were dealt a bad
hand, picked the losing pony, tossed
craps? Would my name have
disappeared? I picture an orderly pulling
me from my heated bed. An aide
skipping a bottle or two of formula.
No one in the family considered
a dire ending to this tall tale.
Or offered to help pay the bill.

First appeared in Red Eft Review