From a childhood on Pierce Avenue on the North Side of Chicago, to working for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Tina Hacker grew into a powerful writer of sensitive, literary poems. Recently a collection of her poems, “Cutting It,” was published by The Lives You Touch Publications of Gwynedd Valley, Pa.
“These poems show how people cope with struggles, from the grand scale, like the Holocaust, to the more common problems facing us all, like forgetfulness,” Hacker wrote when she submitted this manuscript.
Her eloquent poems touch on issues such as the Holocaust and growing up in Chicago.
“On Pierce Avenue,” she said, “it was almost all Jewish and all my relatives were there. I lived there till I was 12 when we moved to Hollywood Park.” Then she attended a public high school, that was “about 95 percent Jewish.” So although her family was not religious, she was surrounded by Jewish culture and ritual.
She sang in two synagogue choirs as well as in the semi-professional Max Janowski Choir. “We sang at the Lyric Opera House for the 13th anniversary of the state of Israel,” Tina remembers, “I shared a stage with Jack Benny, but didn’t recognize him!”
From this youth of performing, Tina really did not focus on writing until she was in college. She has both a bachelor’s degree in teaching and a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Illinois.
But it was really her years growing up in Chicago and hearing stories about the Holocaust from family members who were survivors that touched her. In her book, the poem, “Looking for Helen,” has the most meaning for her. Helen was a cousin who survived Auschwitz. One day, after 25 years, she informed the family that her name was Julie, not Helen. No one ever knew why, but Tina supposes:
Now I call her Julie without translating
Her new name into the original.
I wonder if she will change her name again.
Where has she put Helen?
Is she in hiding so when the Nazis
come, her neighbors will say,
“No one by that name lives here.”
Tina moved to Kansas City to work for Hallmark Cards, where she spent 37 years until she retired. For many years she edited the Jewish lines, and then was the Jewish consultant for these card lines. She edited three books for Hallmark relating to Jewish issues: “Shalom, The Heritage of Judaism in Selective Writings,” in 1972; “The Jewish Spirit.” in 1976; and a book of Sholom Aleichem tales called “A Childhood of Honey and Tears.”
For a while she belonged to Kehilath Israel Synagogue where she became a close friend of Dorothy “Dottie” Shoham. She wrote “Sheba” about her. This poem is one of two of her poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes of the small presses. The other poem, “Final Night,” was recently nominated.
Hacker is active in the writing community of Kansas City. She is the immediate past co-president of the Writers Place and served on the board for four years. Her poems have been published in many literary journals and anthologies.
She and her husband, Lynn Norton, live in Leawood, where her home is decorated with Jewish art including a driedel and chanukiah collection. Norton, an artist who works for Hallmark, drew the cover art for the book.
To get a copy of the book, contact Hacker at or go to Amazon.com. The book costs $15 plus postage.
