The poems in this collection revisit the classic themes that have inspired poets for generations: love, passion, betrayal, doubt, loyalty, despair, faith, and survival — this time in the context of the period before, during, and after the Holocaust with its systematic persecution and extermination of the majority of European Jewry by the Nazi regime.
In this collection, victims are given voices. In "First Day of German Class" a young, teenaged girl unfamiliar with the Nazis and their atrocities in Germany and other Nazi-occupied territory develops a crush on the handsome and enigmatic SS Officer who passes out the yellow Stars of David they must now wear, like a brand, to identify and isolate them from the rest of the population.
In the author's first Holocaust poem, "Cutthroat: A Player Who Plays for Himself" — excerpted in The Kommandant's Mistress — a female inmate forced into sexual servitude by the Kommandant of the camp considers suicide as an escape from her personal bondage and from the camp, even as she alternately pities or condemns those "weak enough" to "go to the wire" (grab the electric fence), offering her own suggestions for suicide to "escape" the intolerable situation.
"Survivor: One Who Survives," the title poem of Szeman's dissertation, also mentioned in her first novel as one of Rachel's poems/books, explores the life of a woman who "survived" her experiences in the camps but is having difficulty "living."
Other disturbing yet lyrical poems trace the Holocaust from the perpetrators' perspective. We hear Albert Speer's musings about which "path" to take in the dramatic monologue "Learning the New Language," in which he initially claims not to understand the "new language" that everyone in the Nazi-regime is speaking, but then begins to practice some of the words himself.
A Warsaw Ghetto guard in "The Dead Bodies That Line The Streets" bitterly complains about all the dead bodies who watch his every movement, whisper behind his back, and generally prevent him from doing his job effectively and from sleeping well.
Early, unnamed versions of Max, of The Kommandant's Mistress, appear, isolated and morally confused in "Dead: Out of Play Though Not Necessarily Out of the Game," where he momentarily sees an inmate as a fellow human being.
A younger SS officer finds himself disconcerted and alarmed after he is unexpectedly attracted to one of the female inmates when he sees her dancing ballet to the music floating from his office window in "White on White."
In the camp itself, one of the Sonderkommando, who were in charge of guiding the Jews to be exterminated into the gas chambers, gives "instructions" to a new member of this chosen group on how to survive the camp, in the grim yet spiritually philosophical "On the Other Hand." Nursery rhymes and children's songs take on a deadly, mesmerizing meaning in the stunning, award-winning "Lager-Lieder (Camp Songs)."
The true story of Auschwitz-survivor Anna Ornstein, who was in the camp as a young girl with her mother, is transformed from Anna's own stories and related in the disturbing yet moving poem "Sofie and Anna."
Haunting depictions of abusers' and survivors' lives after the war appear in works like "Those Who Claim We Hated Them," where the narrator insists — not always convincingly — that he, his family, and his colleagues held no contempt whatsoever for the Jews, and only did what was politically and morally required of them so that they themselves might survive the Nazi regime and the War.
In the collection's title work, "Where Lightning Strikes," a survivor of the camps who now holds a Professorship likens his encounter with contemporary anti-Semitism to a tree's being struck by lightning: swift, unexpected, brutal, devastating, but terrifyingly and sadly illuminating.
Szeman's work speaks to us with clarity and resonance. Her themes, though set, in this collection, around the Holocaust, are universal, encompassing the perpetrators', victims', and survivors' perspectives equally insightfully. Though the line-breaks are syllabic — imitating the arbitrary rigidity of the Nazi persecutions as well as of the concentration camps' operations — the language flows passionately over the artificially imposed line-breaks and formal stanzas. The poems' many fans often state that, despite the fact that they may have been initially wary of the subject matter, they were enthralled and shaken by poetry which so clearly, simply, and memorably portrays such complex and harrowing events in human history.
All of the poems in this collection have been previously published in literary and university journals, and many of the poems in this collection have been awarded prizes, including the University of Cincinnati's Elliston Prize (anonymous competition; 1983, 1984, 1985), Michigan State University's The Centennial Review Michael Miller Award for Poetry (1985), and The Isabel & Mary Neff Fellowship for Creative Writing (1984-85). Several poems were part of her dissertation, Survivor: One Who Survives (University of Cincinnati, 1986). Along with her non-Holocaust poetry collection, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs, this volume, Where Lightning Strikes, was unanimously accepted for publication by all outside readers of UKA Press in 2004.
As powerful, unsettling, and lyrical as her first novel, The Kommandant's Mistress, these poems will take you on a compelling, chilling, and unforgettable journey into the lives, hearts, and minds of all those who were victims, perpetrators, and survivors of the Holocaust.
Read an Excerpt from
Where Lightning Strikes
(award-winning poems on the Holocaust)
(begins on next page)
(Note: On e-readers, tablets, or Smartphones, you may need to use Landscape Orientation for some of the poems to see the original line/stanza breaks.)
Where Lightning Strikes
award-winning poems
on the Holocaust
Alexandria Constantinova Szeman
RockWay Press, LLC · New Mexico
Copyright © 1984-1986, 1987-2004, 2012
by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman
Contents
Learning the New Language
First Day of German Class
Landscape, with Figures
Learning the New Language
When the Dancer Becomes the Dance
The Dead Bodies That Line the Streets
Dead: Out of Play Though Not Necessarily Out of the Game
The Dead Bodies that Line the Streets
Cutthroat: A Player Who Plays for Himself
Lager-Lieder (Camp Songs)
On the Other Hand,
White on White
Sofie and Anna
Survivor: One Who Survives
Bone-on-Bone
Survivor: One Who Survives
Unframed Daguerreotype
In Pursuit of Our Own Shadows
Those Who Claim We Hated Them
Letter to Sylvia
At the Point Where Lightning Strikes
The Day the Snakes Came
Children's Blood
Little Birds
Little Birds
First Day of German Class
We unearth the books in cartons behind his desk,
their pages crisp, their bindings unbroken. The boys
are the only ones brave enough to touch them. We
girls don't dare. While we admire the books, the German
sweeps in, wearing a black uniform with silver
buttons, gleaming medals, and a sunlight halo.
We scurry to our seats, whispering amazement
at his face. In the desk behind me, Anna leans
forward to breathe my very thoughts. When the German's
eyes caress her, she blushes, bows her head, doesn't
speak again. I imagine myself seventeen
and beautiful, my unruly hair less coarse, less
dark. I imagine his gazing at me the way my
brother Abram stares at the girls with pale braids who
pass our house each day on the walk home from school. The
German's ardent words enthrall us. While he talks, he
strokes his rugged palm with his baton, strolls between
the rows of desks. His boy assistants press in our
/> hands our first new word: black lettering on a gold,
six-pointed star. His voice glides, pirouettes, wreathes
'round us. Soon, we think, we, too, will own these words. When he
pauses beside my desk, I glance up. Édesem,
he whispers, trembling, and I know that he, too, has
been longing to play this part. My lovely fair hair
strays across my eyes and throat as he leans nearer;
then I feel the color of his eyes, and I taste
his sweet breath. Anna's fingers gouge my shoulder
as he strides to the front of the room, eclipsing
the light. The next moment, a train's roar turns him to
a mime, its foul smoke stinging the late autumn air.
Dead:
Out of Play
Though Not Necessarily
Out of the Game
Submit to the present evil,
lest a greater one befall you.
Phaedrus
Fables
My request for transfer is denied, this time with
an angry phone call from my superiors in
Berlin. You'll stay where you are. Unless you want to
return to the Front. No, thank you. No, not even
for another Iron Cross. It's hard to see them
every day, but it's harder still to see friends fall.
So what can I do? What can any of us do?
Marta's letter has been on my desk a week. She'll
worry if I don't write soon, but I don't have the
courage to answer it. Besides, what is there to
say to her? One of the inmates slipped yesterday
in the muck and mire of the camp's yard, and three others
rushed over to pick him up. I could've lifted him
with only one hand, he was so thin and frail. A mere
scarecrow. When they saw me watching them, their eyes, just
for one brief moment, turned less opaque. No one moved.
But I felt almost as if I should do something,
say something, anything, to make them understand.
Then their eyes clouded again. Like always. They clutched
their fallen comrade and dragged themselves away from
me, leaving me standing there, the baton cold and
hard in my hand, the snow falling all around us.
Survivor:
One Who Survives
The only difference
between a madman
and myself is that
I am not mad.
Salvador Dali
Four or five times a day, steamy baths fog away
her past until the skin puckers, then heavy towels
unburden her. She frees her hair, shakes it until
it caresses her back and thighs: she hasn't cut
it since liberation, will not allow scissors
in the house. Her husband doesn't complain any
longer. Early each morning, she stretches clean starched
sheets tautly over the sturdy mattress, then crawls
between them when trains clank the tracks half a mile from
the house. She still insists on accompanying
the children to school, only lately has she
allowed them to return on their own. They keep their
backpacks in their lockers, remind each other to
discard their apple cores before arriving home
so she can't retrieve them and hide them under her
pillow. She wears long sleeves even in summer. The
children invent elaborate stories about the
blue-black numbers scratched on her left forearm. She still
flinches at the hint of a uniform, and still
imagines an extra point on the gold star on
the village Christmas tree, stares until her husband
liberates her. The children don't bring any of
their friends home. She goes to bed early each night, and
her husband guards her anxious dozing, smoothing hair
from her face. In the darkness, those voices shout zu
Fünf, while a train without brakes plunges into deep
tunnels winding ever deeper into the earth.
Publication Acknowledgments
& Awards
Portions of Where Lightning Strikes have appeared previously (sometimes in altered form or under different titles, and under the name "Sherri" Szeman) in the following publications:
Journals
• Black Warrior Review (University of Alabama)
• Centennial Review (Michigan State University)
• Chicago Review (University of Chicago)
• Colorado-North Review (University of Northern Colorado)
• Cornfield Review (Ohio State University at Marion)
• Dark Horse
• Jeopardy (Western Washington University)
• Jewish Currents
• The Kenyon Review (Kenyon College)
• Literary Review (Fairleigh Dickinson University)
• MSS (State University of New York)
• Nebo (Arkansas Technical University)
• New Kent Quarterly (Kent State University)
• Ohio Journal (Ohio State University)
• Red Cedar Review (Michigan State University)
• Sidewinder (Texas College of the Mainland)
• Wisconsin Review (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh)
• Writers' Forum (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)
Books
• Survivor: One Who Survives (Ph.D. dissertation, original poetry, University of Cincinnati, 1986)
Awards
• The Centennial Review Prize for Poetry (Michael Miller Award) for best poem published in 1984 (Michigan State University) 1985
• The Isabel & Mary Neff Fellowship for Creative Writing (University of Cincinnati) 1984-1985
• Elliston Prize, First Place (anonymous competition; University of Cincinnati) 1985
• Elliston Prize, Second Place (anonymous competition; University of Cincinnati) 1984
• Elliston Prize, Grand Prize (no other prize awarded) (anonymous competition; University of Cincinnati) 1983
End Excerpt from
Where Lightning Strikes
(award-winning poems on the Holocaust)
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Creative Writing/Non-Fiction
About
Mastering Point of View:
Using POV & Fiction Elements
to Create Conflict, Develop Characters,
Revise Your Work, & Improve Your Craft;
Revised, Updated, & Expanded;
12th Anniversary Edition
(non-fiction/creative writing)
Award-winning and critically acclaimed author of The Kommandant's Mistress, Only with the Heart, No Feet in Heaven, and several other books in many genres, Alexandria Constantinova Szeman (formerly writing as "Sherri") shows you how to master literary point of view in short & long fiction, as well as how to manipulate the other essential elements of creative writing, such as urgency, character development, realistic dialogue, effective settings, tasteful erotic & aesthetic violent scenes, as they relate to point of view.
Szeman also provides imaginative exercises for using Point of View for revision, overcoming writer's block, acquiring Voice, and other valuable tips for keeping your readers turning pages.
Illustrative examples are provided from fiction writers James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Chris Bojhalian, Stephanie Meyers, Nicholas Sparks, J. K. Rowling, Charlaine Harris, as well as from many successful self-published & Indie authors who use Point of View well.
This revised, upd
ated, & expanded, 12th Anniversary Edition of the original bestseller Mastering Point of View: How to Control Point of View to Create Conflict, Depth, & Suspense (Story Press, 2001) is updated to include examples from successful authors, including Indie and self-published ones, whose work has appeared since the book was first published. It also includes chapters and examples on other fiction elements, such as Urgency, Developing Realistic Characters, Writing Natural Dialogue, etc. which were deleted from the 1st edition.
Chapter-ending exercises help you implement the lessons and concepts, while challenging you to explore commercial & literary genres, and to stretch your talent, range, and abilities.
Finally, Szeman offers comprehensive surveys of classic, modern, contemporary, and genre/commercial fiction. Each one lists dozens of well-known books that demonstrate exceptional use of point of view.
The Kommandant's Mistress Page 38