Soon one of my dreams will become a reality: my book, The Hatchet Man” will be published by Poetica. Publishing. The story of how I came to write a book of Holocaust-inspired poetry, however, isn’t in the book.

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The poems that comprise “The Hatchet Man” represent the culmination of a creative process based on history, secular and biblical. I don't know how else I can account for this collection. The more I studied the Holocaust and learned about my subject, the more prolific the creative instinct became. It was if the writing took on a life of its own, a not uncommon subconscious endeavor that all poets experience. In retrospect when I read some of the poems, today, I am reminded of what Alexander Pope said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” The Pierian spring located in Macedonia was a sacred meeting place of the nine Muses. This is where they bathed, drank and ate the fruit of creativity later to be presented as gifts to the artists. Another quote from Pope that I find appropriate as it relates to a creative bent is, “Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.”

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My inclination was to study the Holocaust, everything from Mein Kampf to the atrocities committed in Death Camps. Once I was full of the knowledge of my subject matter, the creative process took hold somehow, with the result being that I produced uninhibited accounts of poetry that depicted historical events. These events, as horrible and as unspeakable as they were, came to life in an organized fashion. It was as if these fossilized congealed heinous acts had been looking for a voice, and not mine only. Many other voices have been raised to bring to remembrance the genocidal treatment of human beings by malignant narcissists; not only in the geographic areas I have depicted, but around the world.

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Should we wait for sweet dreams

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Should we wait for sweet dreams

To comfort us,

Sugar plums or cedars?

Should we be patient in our dream state

And wait for pleasantries,

Dainties designed to encourage hope?

Or should we sleep

With one eye open

And embrace the dreams

Of our realities,

The dreams with the skin still on?

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The poems have not been particularly organized in any specific sense, but there does seem to be a logical beginning and ending. In the beginning the poems reflect the humiliation and degradation that was heaped upon a particular people based on where they have come from and who they are. Further on the poems change and reflect how certain events unfolded politically and almost obliterate any shred of hope. Towards the end of the book there is a miraculous victory along with acts so supernaturally performed that they defy human understanding. Finally, there is an admonition to treat each other as equals with an eye to brotherly love, a place where communal peace will reign in the hearts of men and women.

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My hope and desire is that many people will read the book and keep the cry of “Never Again” alive with due diligence and look for opportunities to “Love their neighbors as themselves, and to do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine blog

Richard Ilnicki, Guest Blogger

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Richard Ilnicki is the author of six books of poetry, his latest of which, The Hatchet Man, is currently in the library of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Library in Washington, D.C. He has written two unpublished novels as well, Mr. Monstriparity and The Bibliophile. An avid supporter, defender, lover and contributor to the state of Israel, the book deals almost exclusively with the Holocaust experience. Mr. Ilnicki lives and works in Tarpon Springs, Florida. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor