Bracken Library hosted the last speaker of the semester in the Visiting Writers Series sponsored by the Lilly II Grant and Creative Writing in the Department of English yesterday. Award-winning poet Stephen Herz read from his book "Whatever You Can Carry: Poems of the Holocaust" to a full crowd last night in Bracken 225 from 5 p.m. until 6 p.m. The event was free to the public, prompting a large response from Ball State students.
Herz read a series of 20 poems to the silent crowd, stopping now and again to give back-story and clarify information in the poems.
The reading was followed by a brief question-and-answer session and signing.
Herz's poems focus on the struggle of Jewish families and individuals in and outside of Europe during the Holocaust. His work is a collection of experiences and responses to the Holocaust by inmates of the concentration camps, Nazis, persons who saw the deportations, American soldiers who liberated the camps and the author's American-Jewish family.
Junior creative writing major Chris Newgent attended the event, saying afterwards that he gained something from Herz's work.
"I learned how powerful this is," Newgent said. "It definitely shows people to think."
Herz is a winner of the New England Poet's Daniel Varoujan Prize and has been widely published in literary journals and magazines. However, he has not always been a poet. Herz began his writing career in an advertising firm after graduating from the University of Illinois in 1958, quickly becoming an award-winning copywriter and creative director.
After retirement, Herz returned to school and discovered a knack for poetry. Over the course of his poetry-writing career, Herz had compiled enough material to form an anthology which eventually reached Ball State creative writing professor Tom Koontz, who published "Whatever You Can Carry" in 2003.
"I think that puts my mark on the world," Koontz said to the audience during his introduction. "With the publication of that book, I feel I made my contribution.
"It took me about 10 years to write these poems," Herz said. "A lot of poets are like that. They can put a piece down and come back to it later to add to it."
Herz's poems are accessible through the library's electronic reserve site under the course name "Visiting Writers Series."
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