Hoping to introduce poetic justice to her students, an English 111 professor invited Dr. Barbara Lovenheim to perform a collection of poems about the Holocaust.

“I have never had a poet for my class before,” said Professor Chella Courington. “But from now on I will, and I hope other teachers will, too.”

Lovenheim did not herself experience the Holocaust. What she has done, however, is fashion a scripted performance using poetry, conversation, drama and narrative history to bring the subject to life for students.

“At first I got the impression that it would be impossible to write poems on such atrocities,” said student Noe Gonzalez, after hearing the poems. “But Dr. Lovenheim opened up my eyes and showed me how to depict the hidden messages.”

Courington and Gonzalez agree that students need to confront the gruesome truths of the Holocaust, and that people can deal with their issues through poetry.

Lovenheim pulled from a large collection of poems written during and after the Holocaust. She described the poetry as a way to educate people in both the intellectual and emotional aspects of this period.

“It is important to realize what has happened in the past, so that we as individuals won’t participate in these cruel events again,” she said. “One way is to confront it and learn.”

The Rochester, New York, native earned a master’s degree in art and English at Tufts University in Boston and her doctorate at the University of Rochester. In addition to scripting poetry, she now teaches English and “Witchcraft” at Monroe City College in New York.

She also travels around reading poetry to students, as she did Feb. 12 at City College.

“I knew about the Holocaust, but after Dr. Lovenheim spoke in our class, I understood more about the history around it,” freshman Quiding Lui said. “I think after this lecture I will become a better writer.”

Lovenheim, 62, has a family history that track backs to the mass-exodus of Russian and Polish Jews in the early 19th century. Her grandparents emigrated out of Russia to the United States.

Growing up, she started reading more about the ethnic cleansing of Jews, which later translated into her starting an organization, the Holocaust Genocide Studies Project.

The Lovenheim Family has plenty of writers-both her father and sister write in their spare time. She discovered in high school that writing was her niche, but often questioned whether she would be good enough.

After reading poems by her favorites Paul Celan and William Butler Yeats, however, she understood that poetry was her calling.

“I have always been fascinated with words and playing with words,” Lovenheim said. “Committing and creating ideas with words are a joy.”

Students said they were inspired by the energy in the room.

“I have a phobia with poems and finding their true meaning,” Gonzalez said. “But Dr. Lovenheim made it helpful and simple to understand.”