What do you think?
Rate this book
Where Lightning Strikes: Poems on the Holocaust
Where Lightning Strikes includes all Szeman's Holocaust poetry, from the poems featured in her Ph.D. dissertation One Who Survives, to the original versions of "Rachel's poems" appearing or mentioned in Szeman's award-winning, critically acclaimed first novel The Kommandant's Mistress.
The poems in this collection revisit the classic themes that have inspired poets for 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, " 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.
" 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 " 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 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 universit...
The poems in this collection revisit the classic themes that have inspired poets for 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, " 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.
" 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 " 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 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 universit...
- GenresPoetry
134 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 7, 2012
2 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Alexandria Constantinova Szeman
11 books91 followersAuthor New York Times Book Review Notable Book and Top 100 Books of Year, Kafka Award Winner The Kommandant's Mistress. University of Cincinnati Elliston Poetry Prize for Love in the Time of Dinosaurs and Where Lightning Strikes: Poems on the Holocaust. UKA Press Grand Prize for short story collection, Naked, with Glasses. True crime memoir, M is for Munchers: The Serial Killers Next Door a Santa Fe Writer's Project Literary Awards Finalist (2017). Childhood Sex Abuse survivor. Writer @ The Mighty and @ MigraineMantras.
(formerly published as "Sherri")
(formerly published as "Sherri")
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 17, 2016
Despite poetry not usually being my cup of tea this was an enjoyable poetry read. The snippets of emotion include a wide assortment of experiences from both sides. I found it easiest to read without paying attention to the line breaks. The author does point out they are more symbolic of the rigidness of the Nazi persecutions and the concentration camps.
With many of the passages I found myself wishing to know more of the incident, as they grabbed you. I tend to read a ton of WWII history so I will likely check out The Kommandant's Mistress by the author in the near future.
In compliance with FTC guidelines: I received this book as an ARC (advanced reader copy) for free through Goodreads First Reads program.
With many of the passages I found myself wishing to know more of the incident, as they grabbed you. I tend to read a ton of WWII history so I will likely check out The Kommandant's Mistress by the author in the near future.
In compliance with FTC guidelines: I received this book as an ARC (advanced reader copy) for free through Goodreads First Reads program.
November 12, 2014
Hard subject matter, but very gripping and moving.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews