A Guide to Jewish Studies: Poetry

"An anthology of poems on the Holocaust by survivors of Sephardic origin and descendants of Sephardi Jews, written in French, Judeo-Spanish, Italian, and Greek (with English translations). In a brief history of the Sephardim (pp. 1-18), recounts the fate of Sephardic communities during the Holocaust period in Bulgaria, Greece, the Dodecanese Islands, Tunisia, and Libya. On pp. 19-50, "Hatred Hurt Them into Poetry", analyzes the themes of the poems, particularly the anguish and suffering of the Jews." - from the publisher

"A selection of children's poems and drawings reflecting their surroundings in Terezín Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia from 1942 to 1944. Fifteen thousand children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp. Fewer than 100 survived. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their hopes and fears, their courage and optimism. 60 color illustrations." - from the publisher

"Paul Celan was born in 1920 in the East European province of Bukovina. Soon after his parents, German-speaking Jews, had perished at the hands of the Nazis, Celan wrote "Todesfuge" ("Death-fugue"), the most compelling poem to emerge from the Holocaust. Self-exited in Paris, for twenty-five years Celan continued writing in his German mother tongue, although it had "passed through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech". His writing purges and remakes that language, often achieving a hope-struck radiance never before seen in modern poetry. But in 1970, his psychic wounds unhealed, Celan drowned himself in the Seine. This landmark volume includes youthful lyrics, unpublished poems, and prose. All poems appear in the original and in translation on facing pages. John Felstiner's translations stem from a twenty-year immersion in Celan's life and work." - from the publisher

"A collection of approximately four hundred poems about the Holocaust written by 240 American authors." - from the publisher

"These poems about the Holocaust are deceptively simple, evocative, and unforgettable." - from the publisher

"A delicate and brave retelling of the Holocaust, 'The Death Mazurka' rediscovers the human equation--numbers assume faces in a catalog of events that dance hauntingly before us. As the most humanistic of histories, this tight cycle of poems is riveting; as art, it engraves an unforgettable portrait of pain and beauty. What Charles Fishman has choreographed, memory will not relinquish." - from the publisher

"Hebrew culture experienced a renewal in medieval Spain that produced what is arguably the most powerful body of Jewish poetry written since the Bible. Fusing elements of East and West, Arabic and Hebrew, and the particular and the universal, this verse embodies an extraordinary sensuality and intense faith that transcend the limits of language, place, and time." "Peter Cole's translations reveal this remarkable poetic world to English readers in all of its richness, humor, grace, gravity, and wisdom. The Dream of the Poem traces the arc of the entire period, presenting some four hundred poems by fifty-four poets, as well as a panoramic historical introduction, short biographies of each poet, and extensive notes. (The original Hebrew texts are available on the Princeton University Press Web site.) By far the most potent and comprehensive gathering of medieval Hebrew poems ever assembled in English, Cole's anthology builds on what poet and translator Richard Howard has already described as "the finest labor of poetic translation that I have seen in many years" and "an entire revelation: a body of lyric and didactic verse so intense, so intelligent, and so vivid that it appears to identify a whole dimension of historical consciousness previously unavailable to us." - from the publisher

"Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation and one of our most important American poets. She brought discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse, pushing formal boundaries and consistently examining both self and society. This collected volume traces the evolution of her poetry, from her earliest work, which was formally exact and decorous, to her later work, which became increasingly radical in both its free-verse form and feminist and political content. The entire body of her poetry is on display in this vast volume, including the National Book Award-winning 'Diving Into the Wreck' and her prize-winning 'Atlas of the Difficult World.' The 'Collected Poems' of Adrienne Rich gathers and memorializes all of her boldly political, formally ambitious, thoughtful, and lucid work--the whole of which makes her one of the most prolific and influential poets of our time."--Jacket.

"Aaron Samuels, raised in Providence, Rhode Island by a Jewish mother and a Black father, is a Cave Canem Fellow and a nationally acclaimed performer. In this ground-breaking collection of poems, Samuels examines the beauty and contradictions of his own mixed identity with gut-wrenching narratives, humor, and passionate verve." - from the publisher