The Lamps of History

by Michael Sandler

The Lamps of History wrestles with the ambiguities—and choices—between connection/alienation, renewal/decay, and faith/doubt. Its poems explore family histories and our stance toward them as they dim, frayed bonds with our grandparents’ traditions and beliefs, and distances ingrained in our current relationships. There are also poems on our civic an ode to a papaya that spills into America’s tribal conflict; elegies to the environment (one on disappearing phytoplankton, another on forests ravaged by pine beetles); a ghazal to a semi-automatic weapon; and a failed recipe for noodle pudding. Michael Sandler’s writing marshals wit and wordplay in a deft handling of language and form. The poetry navigates the crosscurrents of tradition and post-modernism, steering somewhat closer to the former. Poet and editor George Bishop “This language is addictive. A stunning sense of place and story. To be read and read again.”

Genres: Poetry

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2021

About the author

Michael Sandler is the author of The Lamps of History, a poetry collection that explores connections between personal and historical experience while wrestling with the ambiguities (and choices) between connection/estrangement and faith/doubt. For much of his adulthood, Michael wrote poems for the desk drawer, while working as a lawyer and later as an arbitrator. He began to publish in 2009. Since then, his poems have appeared in scores of literary journals including Arts & Letters, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Zone 3. He lives in the Seattle area. To learn more about Michael and his work, please go to https://www.sandlerpoetry.com .

Reviews

[Jessica (Odd and Bookish) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free from the author as part of an Instagram review tour with TLC Book Tours.

I find that poetry is always the toughest genre to review. It is so personal and subjective that it is hard to critique it in the same way as prose. Because of this, poetry can be a hit or a miss and that is how I felt about this book. It is hard to put into words exactly what I thought about this book.



This was a very interesting collection of poetry that didn’t quite resonate with me. There were some poems that I liked but others I didn’t really get. I felt like I missed some of the references in some pieces and struggled to make out exactly what the poem was about. That being said I still enjoyed some of the poems. My favorites were:

-Lokshen Kugel (pg. 12)
-When Literature Made Something Happen (pg. 18)
-After the Party, We... (pg. 20)
-Thought Thread (pg. 30)
-Garlic Press (pg. 44)
-All Souls’ Day (pg. 48)
-Iridescence (pg. 49)
-Acnestis (pg. 53)
-Knock (pg. 58)
-Still: Softening Stale Bread (pg. 59)
-Cenobite (pg. 76)
-After Certitude (pg. 89)

Overall, this collection wasn’t my kind of poetry but I’m sure others would love and resonate with it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I’ve said before in poetry reviews, I’m not a reviewer of style choices or syntax or anything technical. Instead, I can tell you what I love, what touches me and moves me, what thing made of so few words sticks in my brain.

I loved how Sandler’s collection was all over the place. I loved the history and culture but I loved most of all how visceral the experience of reading his poetry was. Although several poems spoke to me, Cenobite was by far my favorite. I reread it many times, nodding and relating to this poem that echoed my feelings on social awkwardness.

I received a gifted copy in exchange for my review.

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:


STILL: HOW MANY VERSES DO YOU KNOW?

Carpathian Ruthenia

A cheder-boy with a wiseacre grin,
innocent of his destination,
eyes too ebullient
for the dark of a cramped room
and his little cap at a jaunty tilt—
we want to shout warnings, but
his finger remains on a commandment,
the silvering having fixed him in a graphic bloom
of pleasure from his flawless recitation.

My father also had answers,
how to shut up Yid-haters, how my evasions
get Jews in trouble. A child had to survive within—
beneath the grimace versed in exposure,
an I’ll-show-you smile taut with hurt and fight—
for years I couldn’t picture
him a boy, carefree or bantam,
until I saw him asleep just before he died,
his face without furrow and smaller than a father’s.


KNOCK

Who’d call on us this late? Can’t help but think
about a blow one Christmas eve, a knock
my friends and their boys hospitably answered.
The overhead light blinds our rain-slicked porch.
A haloed glaze obscures the peepholed view,
his image silhouetted to distrust:
Rap, should I answer? Rap rap, no one here?
A birch door holds us just inches apart.

Does he still have a knife? Remind me how
the Lord is watching over our thresholds. Washing
the feet of wayfarers now relegated
to comic trope in a parochial
school pageant—our commandment: not to greet
but safeguard. Double-bolted, my door invites
his doubting stare for signs of Yes or No
in Abrahamic code without a key.

His face seems open. Shut, mine thinks of kids
asleep above—though I try to mute a chorus
from their volunteering at the shelter:
It’s surely worse for those who have to ask.
I half-pity his drenched features, fathoming
we’re not neighbors, just creatures who believe
doors are meant to pivot, fellows to commune—
till one of us turns away…then the other.

[L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a hard one to rate. It’s a bit inaccessible for my taste, in terms of the diction. However, the cadence of the poems is lovely, and there are some highlightable lines, particularly when the narrator ruminants on his place in relation to his family tree, and that tree’s place in history. Representation to note: there see to be many references to Judaism and the Jewish culture.