Jack Wiler

Life
Wiler grew up in the South Jersey town of Wenonah, New Jersey. His mother was a librarian at the Wenonah Free Public Library who instilled a love of books in her children and his father was a salesman in the petroleum industry. Wiler was the eldest of four children. In his last years he created a blog in a serial memoir format about life in Wenonah as he experienced it as a boy. In his posts he attributed the development of his abilities as a storyteller and later as a performing poet in large part to the practice he got while walking to school. Wenonah Elementary had no cafeteria in those days and children walked to school in the morning, home for lunch, back to school after lunch and home again after school. Wiler walked with a small group of cronies who spun tales as they strolled back and forth. In other posts he wrote about how Wenonah appeared to him when returning to recover from AIDS after living the city life. He graduated from Gateway Regional High School in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, and from Rutgers University with a BA.
Poetry and writing
Wiler began writing poetry seriously in 1978. His motivation changed after he very nearly died from AIDS complications. He began publishing poems in a number of magazines including Long Shot Magazine, Edison Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly and Entelechy International: A Journal of Contemporary Ideas. He contributed poems to and served for six years as an editor for Hoboken, NJ based Long Shot Magazine.
In addition to poems that appeared in a number of poetry magazines Wiler published two books of poetry during his life, I Have No Clue in 1996 and Fun Being Me in 2006. Bob Holman listed Fun Being Me as one of the ten best poetry books of 2006 on About.com.
Wiler's work was included in a number of anthologies including Aloud, the anthology of the Nuyorican Poets Café, the Outlaw Poetry Anthology from Thundermouth Press, Stiletto2: The Disinherited, and Bum Rush the Page. In 2004 his work was included in The Breath of Parted Lips, Vol II a collection of poems from the Frost Place.
Performing poetry was an important part of his work as a visiting poet in New Jersey high schools as part of the poetry-in-the-schools program sponsored by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The foundation honored Wiler in 1988 and 1996 by including him among the "Poets Among Us" group at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation Festival. At the 2006 foundation festival Wiler was listed as one of the "Festival Poets."
Of particular note among Wiler's performances was that of Wiler playing himself in a one man play, Fun Being Me, that Steven McCasland adapted from Wiler's two books.
Career
Wiler's day job for twenty years was as a sales manager for Acme Exterminating Corporation in New York City. Acme Exterminating, with Wiler on the scene, participated when Central Park held its first rat D-day in 1991. He was interviewed by the BBC about his role in pest control. At times he was also consulted on cockroach issues.
After his death at age 57, the poetry anthology Omega 7 From Hive This Mind, which includes five of his poems, was dedicated to memory of Wiler.
Books
* I Have No Clue, Long Shot Productions, 1996 ISBN 9780965473804
* Fun Being Me: Poems (Notable Voices), CavanKerry Press, 2006, ISBN 0-9723045-9-2

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