Editor's Choice: The voice of Tina Hacker

I was introduced to a new voice late in July when I opened an email submission from a poet of whom I had never heard.  After I catalogued the submissions, I sat down to read them.  Immediately I knew I was holding something special in my hands because I read them again and again, and as I read them, I began to get a sense of the poet.  I don’t know how much of this sense was influenced by my imagination, but I felt a tremendous empathy and sensitivity to the human condition in the characters and in the words of those poems.

What made the experience so wonderful was that I was transported into the poems because of the poet’s adept use of imagery and language.  I could hear and see the characters, and I could feel their emotions.  What made the work stand out for me was the consistency in the quality of the writing, the attention paid to the details, the mastery of craft, the flow, and the development of the poems as this weaver wove her tapestry.  Quite simply, these poems touched me.  It became very evident that I was in the presence of poetic excellence.

Though I felt strongly about the poems, I waited until the following Tuesday to hear Daniel’s reaction to them when we reviewed the prior week’s submissions together.  After Daniel read and rated the poems, we discussed them.  When we came to Tina’s poetry, Daniel stated that we had found our Editor’s Choice.  There was simply no question in his mind, and I agreed.  Quite often, we don’t agree on poems, and we spend a great deal of time discussing why we feel a poem should or should not be included.  There are times when the discussions become quite animated; but in the end, we believe that it is through this process that we are able to present the best of the pieces we receive.  In the case of this work, our only discussion was why we loved each poem.

I am both proud and honored to present you with four poems, Sheba,

My Mother’s Hands, Cutting It, and Final Night which will be found at the center of this issue.  Each of these poems tells a different story presented in a different setting.  Each poem uses different techniques and evokes different emotions.  Yet with each poem, the care and the craft of the poet becomes evident as each poem builds to its moment of clarity.

Touch: The Journal of Healing strives to foster poets in their aspiration to capture those moments in life in which we’re all touched on a physical, emotional, or spiritual level.  These four poems exemplify this theme through their moments of reflection and introspection.

And so I present to you a voice of Touch: Tina Hacker.

O.P.W. Fredericks, Editor

© 2009 O.P.W. Fredericks