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Photograph by Douglas Rider
Faithful Tool: Campbell resident Robert Pesich uses an antique typewriter that dates back to World War II in the Philippines.
Public Citizen
Poetic License
By Erin Mayes
Robert Pesich describes himself as a poet, researcher, landlord, editor, Serbian, American, bachelor and coyote (with a wink).
From his sunny apartment off of Winchester Avenue, where tabletops glisten from fresh polishing and the carpet bears evidence of a recent visit from a vacuum, Pesich plunks out pages of poetry on a 1940s Royal Quiet DeLuxe typewriter that still remembers its heyday during World War II in the Philippines.
"I like the bell, when it rings, and I like the smell," he says. "Sometimes I pack it up just so I can smell it."
The 34-year-old's first book of poems, "Burned Kilim," just rolled off the presses last week. Pesich plans to kick off the release with a reading scheduled for 2 p.m. on August 19 at the San Jose Museum of Art.
The book is a collection of poems with a common theme--the dissolution of Yugoslavia. A "kilim" is a fine-woven tapestry found in certain countries--Turkey, Kurdistan, the Caucasus, Iran and the states formerly known as Yugoslavia.
Pesich's father escaped Yugoslavia in the 1950s, went through Ellis Island and ended up working as an engineer in Los Angeles. A few years later, he made a trip back to Yugoslavia. "As immigrants are wont to do, he came back in big style," Pesich says.
Pesich's father met his mother during this visit and impressed her by claiming to be American. They were married within two months, but not before Pesich's mother discovered his father's lie after he responded to a waiter's inquiry in Serbo-Croatian.
"She was so [mad] at him," Pesich says. "He was putting on false pretenses--he could understand things she and her friends were saying about him."
Still, his mother, whom he describes as a remarkable woman, looked past what Pesich calls his father's coyote-like ways (which he may have inherited) and decided to move back to the United States. They settled in Sunnyvale, where Pesich grew up learning Serbo-Croatian as his first language.
When his mother realized children were making fun of him because of his accent, she decided that only English would be spoken in the house. Today, Pesich's English is flawless and he believes that neglecting to use difficult words in everyday conversation would be a waste of language.
During high school, Pesich began to write poetry seriously. His work centered around Yugoslavia and "finding a sense of self and a dissolution of self. You find yourself, and then you find how you're so like other people. Most often, it's reassuring."
After high school, Pesich attended the UC-Davis and earned a degree in molecular genetics. He now works for Stanford University as a research assistant, studying breast cancer and using micro rays to find new genes associated with the disease. The basic goal of his work there is to better tailor chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer patients.
As an associate editor for the international literary journal The Montserrat Review and the secretary for the San Jose Center of Poetry and Literature, Pesich seems to have more than a full plate.
Asked about his goals for the future, he says: "[I want to] keep writing, keep searching, keep working, keep trying to help out at least a little bit with the research--ease the suffering. And maybe I'll get married."
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Campbell, California
