From Library Journal
Striar has compiled an extensive anthology of poems relating to the Holocaust (1933-45). Divided into 18 sections, the anthology traces the Holocaust chronologically and provides an introduction and thorough biographical notes. From Yehuda Amichai, Israel's famous poet, to Abraham Sutzkever, who wrote poetry while hiding from the Nazis, these poets accept the challenge of "bearing witness" to overwhelming trauma. Overall, recounting a "warfare of the spirit" provides elegiac remembrance of millions whose tragic deaths were "vast and monstrous." Some poems are startling, others bitter outcries at injustice. The best transform anguish into a noble search for meaning and prove that the "darkness is brighter than the flame." Elie Wiesel argues that the Holocaust is "a sacred event not to be defiled" by writing novels and poetry that attempt to transform it into metaphor. Perhaps, but the depth of feeling evident in these tributes makes for rewarding reading. A long overdue anthology.?Frank Allen, West Virginia State Coll., Institute
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The Holocaust is a defining event of our century, one that needs repeated interpretation, and one that must never be forgotten. Music has been composed, films have been made, and novels have been written in an attempt to articulate, comprehend, and, perhaps, exorcise the horrors of the Holocaust. And then there's poetry, the most evocative of the literary arts. In her introduction to this thoughtfully assembled and passionately motivated anthology, Striar writes, "Most poets don't choose to write about the Holocaust. It chooses them." The truth of this statement is obvious in the 280 poems Striar has selected, poems by poets both famous and unheralded, poems full of sorrow and bitterness, strength and irony. Striar takes a historical approach, beginning with poems under the heading "Premonitions and Prophesies" and working, painfully, through the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the long, troubled aftermath. There are poems in memory of the dead, and poems by children of survivors who even now are witnessing manifestations of anti-Semitism. These poets all bear witness, as Striar's subtitle implies, but they also transcend the events they immortalize, offering the solace inherent in art. Donna Seaman
