11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterful, poignant, beautiful......, May 19, 2007
This review is from: Lightning and Ashes (Paperback)
One critic dubbed Guzlowski as one of the "great recording angels" of
our age. This is apt praise for a true poet whose words are simple,
straightforward, and sing with raw power. Guzlowski's parents met in
Hitler's labor camps and survived to build a life out of "lightning
and ashes." This book is his testament to them.
In the prologue poem, "My Mother Reads My Poem 'Cattle Train to
Magdeburg'" the poet's mother shares a few of her memories, but only a
few:
Even though you're a grown man
and a teacher, we saw things
I don't want to tell you about.
Guzlowski describes his mother as "the poet of dead ends, old despairs/written in whispers..." His father is "a man held together/with stitches he laced himself."
This is a masterful work, poignant and beautiful. Highly recommended.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harrowing, moving and beautifully written, June 12, 2007
This review is from: Lightning and Ashes (Paperback)
I read John Guzlowski's collection The Language of Mules a couple of years ago and was very pleased to find this collection. He is a very talented poet who should be more widely read and appreciated. The Language of Mules explores the experiences of his parents in the Nazi camps during WWII, a theme which Lightning and Ashes continues to explore, and also his family's experiences on first arrving in America. The images can be stark and dreadful - they are also unforgettable - but there is a lyricism and beauty that makes these multi-stranded in their depiction of this world.
Just to give a flavour of the writing - an extract from I Dream of My father as He Was When He First Came Here Looking For Work:
'Remember this: this is what war is./One man has a chicken and another doesn't/One man is hungry and another isn't/One man is alive and another is dead./Isay, there must be more, and he says/"No that's all there is. Everything else/is the fancy clothes they put on the corpse.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and brave, June 4, 2007
This review is from: Lightning and Ashes (Paperback)
Lightning And Ashes is not an easy book. Like "lightning," it lights up the sky in shocking flashes. Where it lands it may burn what it strikes, leaving ashes in its wake. Death by war, torture, famine, depression: these are the topics relentlessly faced by the author, himself tragically familiar with these experiences through his parents' survival in World War II. In the opening poem, his mother says "Even though you're a grown man/and a teacher, we saw things/I don't want to tell you about." Well, this poet wants to tell you about them. It's worth listening.
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