Holocaust Poetry [Hardcover]

Hilda Schiff (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1995

Holocaust Poetry is a lasting and solemn tribute to the memory of the past and to the hope of the future.

Behold, God of Abraham, God of mercy,
Open your eyes as you have opened mine,
Open your eyes and see what I have seen... --Elie Wiesel

She felt a kind of envy for
Those who stood naked in their truth:
Where to be one of her people was
To be one of those millions killed. --Stephen Spender

And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail. --Anne Sexton

Consider whether this is a man.
Who labors in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no. --Primo Levi

The volume includes 119 poems and the voices of 59 poets.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The power of verse to encompass a topic of mammoth scope and render it into painstakingly personal detail is keenly demonstrated in this absorbing and well thought-out anthology of grief. Sixty-two poets of different ages, citizenships and perspectives make their voices heard. There is Primo Levi on being an Auschwitz survivor; Randall Jarrell speaks in the voice of a death-camp worker. There are poems that have no need for complexity of form or vocabulary. Poets from Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Israel and the U.S. declare the simple truths that propel the reader through the eight parts of this collection, each section a stage marked with a title of forewarning, beginning with "Alienation" and "Persecution," on to "Lessons" and, finally, "God." We learn what was left of the body?smoke, empty shoes, "a faded plait/ a pigtail with a ribbon"?and we uncover what was freed of the poet's mind?rage, testimony, legacy.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Can there be poetry about the Holocaust? Isn't this kind of writing an attempt to escape--or to exploit--the suffering of millions? Poet and anthologist Schiff confronts these questions in her eloquent introduction. One answer she finds is that to remain silent is also to lie. Fifty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, great literature about the Holocaust has grown to a flood. As in Langer's landmark anthology Art from the Ashes (1995), the pieces here are of astonishing power. In English and in translation from many languages, more than 80 poets--including Wiesel, Fink, Brecht, Yevtushenko, Auden, and Sachs--give voice to what seems unspeakable. Schiff points out that compelling historical accounts document the facts and numbers, but a poem, like a story, makes us imagine how it felt for one person. These poems are stark and deceptively simple. No one can read them all at once. Each poem leaves you with an indelible memory. In words of one syllable, the Polish poet Ro{¢}zewicz writes about having to reinvent language after Auschwitz ("this is a man / this is a tree this is bread" ). There's no healing in this tragedy: the last poem, by Primo Levi, is like a shout of rage to us to remember. Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (April 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312130864
• ISBN-13: 978-0312130862
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,471,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars haunting, gripping, emotionally supercharged, June 23, 2001

By 

Carol C. "ccjello" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Holocaust Poetry (Paperback)

Shiff prefaces this book with a verse from Job 16:18: "Oh earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no resting place." This anthology gives voice to holocaust victims, it brings immediacy to the holocaust -- making it a current tragedy rather than a historical event. The poems are organized somewhat chronologically, in sections titled Alienation, Persecution, Destruction, Rescuers Bystanders & Perpetrators, Afterwards, Second Generation, Lessons, and God. A variety of writers are represented, from the famous (Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Sylvia Plath), to the less famous (Pavel Friedman, a child inmate of Theresienstadt camp). An appendix includes fascinating biographical sketches information on each author, which adds an extra dimension to the poetry. Much of the poetry is very readable, accessible, not as esoteric as I had expected. The overall effect is highly disturbing, yet it's inspiring that many of the writers are able to find God or meaning in such horror.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE VOICE OF SILENCE!, March 18, 2000

By 

Ajai Narendran - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holocaust Poetry (Paperback)

The Holocaust is undoubtedly the most horrific epoch of human violence mankind ever witnessed.Not much historical documentation was done about it because in the brutal act of murdering Six million Jews by the Nazi supportors almost an entire race got wiped out...the few that survived remained transfixed by the aftermath of that shattering experience of barbaric cruelity.The recorded facts were kept supressed for a long time.The Holocaust remained hidden like a Blackhole in the obscure labyrinths of history. Though we consider the Holocaust as a rudiment of the dead past,we still find the haunting echos even now.Just look back in retrospect even a short span of the bygone decade.There we find the demonic manifestations of the forgotten dead past!The list at random is alarming:ethnic strife in Rwanda,Cechnia,Croatians and Serbs,Jews and the Palestinens and above all Racial descrimination at different levels in almost all the continents.This is the price we pay for remaining oblivious to the lessons of the past.The dictum"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it" will hold true for ever.It is indeed our moral responsibility to at least remotely live through the pain and and agony...to empathise with the victims of the holocaust who suffered more by the deliberate acts of cruelity by their own fellow beings than by the stroke of fate.It will be a disdainful act if we choose to turn away from this imperious reality of the past! Hilda Schiff's compilation "Holocaust Poetry" addresses this fact with such immediacy of purpose.This is a very insightful compilation because Hilda Schiff has chosen to include as many variety of poems from different perspectives of the same reality than presenting a chosen few poets at length.This offers a panaromic insight into the holocaust in its entiriety!The poems compiled are arranged in an order that gives a graphical account of the plight of the victims.Nothing else could be a better example of Man's innate urge to destroy and above all Man's indomitable will to overcome..to eventually triumph against all odds.These poems give that rare insight into the complexity of the strange human predicament as well! Well,when striken stricken to the heart the Lion gives out his mightiest roar,smitten on the head the cobra rises it's hood...and the glory of the Self comes forth when a man is wounded to the depths!These verbal expressions form only a fractional account of the unsung saga of the holocaust victims,but they stand as the living testimony of a statement by the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis" Man's wings won't sprout until he reaches the brink of an abyss!"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Time in History that Saddens Us All, March 9, 2000

By 

Felicia Smyre (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holocaust Poetry (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading your book of Holocaust Poetry. It touched my heart in many different ways. I felt the sorrows of the poets who displayed their poetry in your book. Some poets lost very close loved ones and showed their love and affection through their poetry. I think that it is very important that we know about the Holocaust and how discrimination affected us and our ancestors. This book taught me that every life has it's own meaning and that we should treat other as we would like to be treated.