The Pear Trees at Terezin, by Jennifer K. Sweeney

Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of Little Spells (New Issues Press), James
Laughlin Award winner, How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press), and
Salt Memory. A Pushcart Prizewinner, poems have recently appeared in The
Adroit Journal, The Awl, Stirring, Terrain, Tinderbox, Thrush, and Verse Daily.


About the poem:

“The Pear Trees at Terezin” was written after spending a month in the Czech Republic.
My travels triggered so many folds of memory and experience that what I could tangibly
remember and what was part of me solely through ancestry felt embedded into the
present. At times I felt like I was reaching far back into my lineage, and at others, spun
out of that dream-like tumble, having never been so far away from my story.