Terry Hertzler

Terry Hertzler (born in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1949) is an American poet and writer.

Hertzler is the owner of Caernarvon Press, a small literary press based in San Diego, California, that publishes both well-known and emerging writers. Hertzler's own work includes several chapbooks of poetry and fiction as well as The Way of the Snake, a book of poetry based on his experiences as a soldier in the war in Vietnam, and Second Skin (ISBN 0-9716383-2-2), of which Dorianne Laux said, "Second Skin provides ample evidence that poetry can be both accessible and powerful, that writing doesn't have to be obscure or difficult to make us think, to move us. Hertzler paints word pictures whose images stay with the reader long after the book is closed." His work has been nominated three times for The Pushcart Prize and has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, including The Iowa Review, The Writer, Literal Latte, North American Review, Margie, Nimrod, Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology (University of Iowa Press) and In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop (Tilbury House, Publishers). His poetry has also been produced on stage and for radio and television.

Here is one of Hertzler's poems, a finalist in the 2007 North American Review James Hearst Poetry Prize:

      Not Quite Déjà Vu

      Sitting in the bathroom, for instance,
      roll of toilet paper down to its last

      few sheets, and you reach around
      to the cabinet under the sink, remove

      a new roll, release the spring-loaded
      rod that holds the cardboard core

      in the dispenser, slide the cardboard
      into the trash, then slip the new roll

      onto the rod, reload the dispenser,
      snapping it home—and it never fails

      to surprise, because it’s the same feeling,
      almost the same motions, as changing

      clips in a rifle during a firefight, and you
      shouldn’t have to feel that way anymore.

Hertzler has twice been one of the winners in The Iowa Review's Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans (in 2013 and 2015). Among other awards, Hertzler was the winner of the 2008 Literal Latte Short Short Contest, and a recent poem, "Heirlooms," from the anthology "No, Achilles: War Poetry," was nominated for the 2016 Pushcart Prize.

References

• Bio on Poets&Writers