Charles Fishman - What People in the Know Have to Say

Charles Adés Fishman – Reviews of My Work

Booklength Collections:

Chopin’s Piano (2006):

“Chopin’s Piano begins with the vision of the composer’s piano being thrown out a fourth-floor window and culminates with a poem for the poet's grandson, whose smiles “shine a clear light on the living.” The movement of this book is toward hope, despite the fact that the past keeps finding us. The poems demonstrate the poet’s range and his ability to speak in many voices —from his narration on the Jews of medieval Spain in “Toledo” and his tribute to Federico García Lorca, to the cinematic “A Child’s Tale,” which reveals the interior world of a Japanese boy who escapes the atomic bombing of his city. Charles Fishman engraves indelibly the ravages of the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and the Israeli wars and — in colors reminiscent of Chagall’s stained glass Jerusalem windows — portrays those he loves and mourns in images that are haunting. In the wasteland of the post-war half-century, the poet is there, unforgettably, rejoicing when he can and agonizing when he has reached ‘The Place of Burning.’” — Lynn Strongin

“I want to say, first, that I think this is a work of some 'heft' — meaning: 'weight.' It re-burdens us — if we ever thought, or felt, even for a moment, unburdened. That 'taking up of the weight' is not only essential to our healing, as a group, but indispensable. If healing is even an option, at this point. These are poems that try the heart. You leave me in a place I know as home but wish were better country, or less stunningly recognizable as the sum of its faults. I was much moved." — Roy Bentley

"Chopin's Piano is not a book for poets and poetry lovers only. This is a book that should be read in schools, in libraries, in museums, and in the sanctuary of our homes. There are plenty of historical books on the Holocaust, but the clinical approach those books offer doesn't necessarily splice the soul like an honest book of poetry will. Chopin's Piano is that book; its poetry sings, it weeps, it accuses, it forgives and it heals. This is truly the best book of poetry I have read in years." — Mia Jones, Tryst Magazine, April 2006

“I thought I had read everything anyone had to say about the Holocaust, and I thought I no longer wanted to read anything about the Holocaust, so your book had to reach me on many levels. It told me there should be no moratorium on witnessing, because the killing isn’t over. Even if it must be said again and again, and I am resistant, your poetry moved me, and made me listen, and grieve anew. I haven’t heard it said in just this way. I believe it took a lot of courage to immerse yourself in that hell again, and I thank you for it, and for the book’s existence." — Florence Weinberger

"The poems in Charles Fishman’s newest collection, Chopin’s Piano, reflect the poet’s fierce determination to look into the eyes of evil. These poems take on the past, facing historical and cultural demons, and thereby dare the reader to do the same. For this reader, Chopin's Piano is an 'offering of refuge' in the landscape of contemporary poetry. It comes wholeheartedly recommended." — Lois Roma-Deeley, Pedestal Magazine, June 2006

"The book is astounding in its depth of insight and connections made between the artist, art, culture, politics and the ways in which it demands, as it should, that our cultural systems and the individuals who participate within them (or not) are accountable." — Merry Gangemi, Woman-Stirred blog, June 2006

“No modern poet shares his essence with greater generosity than Charles Fishman. His spirit burns with rage and grieves with inexpressible sorrow; his book is glorious and beautiful, haunting and horrifying. Every place humans starve, burn, or wither, Fishman’s heart is there. From the dark days of Hitler to the present, he mourns the losses and counts humanity’s cost. His words are a ram’s horn, a Shofar, a heart bringing truth out of darkness. If you value poetry as a priceless gift to humanity, Chopin’s Piano is a must have, a must read.” — Laurel Johnson, Quill, Summer 2006

“Though taking place over a half century ago, the horrors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima become as alive as yesterday's rain in Mr. Fishman's able depictions based on the testimony, witness, and memory of those with a terrible knowledge and experience. Humanity's brutality is also explored in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the death of Lorca, and violence in the Holy Land. Grim subjects all. The art is in the telling: a simple declarative tone mixed with vivid imagery; a style of calculation: dare to turn your face and heart away while the poet rivets you with a storyteller's skill. — Iconoclast, September 2006

“I just finished reading your poignant and fine, fine poems — and wanted to thank you so much for sending Chopin’s Piano to me — this is an essential book that must be heard, remembered and celebrated. I will recommend it warmly to my students.” — Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Chopin’s Piano is a haunting slide show of the brutality human beings are capable of perpetrating upon one another. [Fishman’s] graphic poems capture our attention like CNN breaking news alerts of helicopters shot down in Iraq. [The] poems are vital; they are important; they are sensitive and show great psychological insight. — Ada Jill Schneider, Midstream, November/December 2007

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Country of Memory (2004):

“Charles Fishman uses words like a jackhammer, a searchlight, a scalpel, and a lover’s hand. If you love poetry, you need to read Country of Memory.” — Laurel Johnson, Quill, Summer 2004

“Who reads these poems will read a man, a very good man, a man reflecting on his family and his life as a poet, and on the world which he makes more beautiful and more memorable with his words. These poems are a special gift to those who love words and life and poetry.” — S. Friedman (Israel), Amazon.com, June 2005

“This country of memory breathes and bleeds.” — Alyssa A. Lappen, Amazon.com, June 2005

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The Firewalkers (1996):

“Charles Fishman’s poems are deep, sensuous, musical, and fully alive. Each one rings true.” — Denise Levertov

“James Wright once remarked that he aspired as a poet to write the poems ‘of a grown man.’ In The Firewalkers, Charles Fishman has written an entire book of such poems — poems which, in their unflinching gaze at the sorrows and joys of relation (as son, as father, as husband, as friend, as lover) ‘give back gentleness to existence.’ Like his firewalkers themselves, these poems ‘cross where only faith can navigate,’ and they do so nobly, passionately, and with great feeling.” — Michael Blumenthal

“These poems of recuperative memory and redemption are written out of the wounded landscape of the body and its mortality — blood speaking — the world in its passing. The elements become figural here: water, air, fire, the earth, in a language of mystery and desire. The Firewalkers is a work of great poignancy and breadth; the burning ground beneath this poet is time itself.” — Carolyn Forché

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The Death Mazurka (1987):

"An outstanding book of poems, The Death Mazurka is entirely focused on the murder of Jews. Of immediate importance, it offers a difficult but accessible vision of one man dancing against severest oppression. These poems are courageous, direct, and deeply moving responses to the Holocaust, and their strength is that they are redemptive and not forbidding." — Choice, April 1988

"These poems are beyond sadness and beyond anger. In their single-mindedness, in their sheer accumulation, they are terrifying, and pure. Fishman has done the unthinkable. He has written an entire book about the murder of the Jews. It is a delicate book, and dramatic and exciting. Most of all, it is brave." — Gerald Stern, University of Iowa

"In his powerful and important book of poems, The Death Mazurka, Charles Fishman courageously makes Jewishness universal in these times. Out of images of common flesh, Fishman molds stunning dark beauty." — Leo Connellan

"Charles Fishman's poetry is direct, captivating, philosophical, splendidly evocative of not only the Holocaust but of deep perceptions about life and death, what it is to be mortal. The Death Mazurka is a poet's assessment of the human condition." — Richard Eberhart

“The poems of The Death Mazurka are responses to the Holocaust, poems of destruction and survival. They are delicate, fierce, touching, somber, bitter, horrible, dark, heavy. And yet they are somehow filled with grace. And, unbelievably, with hope. Fishman manages in the poems to convey the pain of the Holocaust — pain for all people — while helping us to be healed and look forward.” — David Romtvedt

"Charles Fishman's challenges in this tour-de-force collection of poems are manifold. Although he succeeds in conveying the mixed emotions that arise from the contemplation of lives like Dr. {Janusz} Korczak's, and in resisting powerful temptations to sentimentalize, Mr. Fishman's many successes would be worthless if he had failed at his greatest challenge, to capture our attention. . . . Mr. Fishman knows this. He knows that if he is to reach any audience at all, his poetry cannot afford to be anything less than the best, and in this, he does not disappoint." — Jonathan Daunt, Pacific International (premier issue, Spring 1993)

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Mortal Companions (1977):

"Some of the poems are mysterious novels-in-little; some are a frightening music. Indeed, they all frighten. Panic-poems. They express my spine. You will make us respond to beauty. Your language is often and often beautiful, and often and often daring." — Cynthia Ozick

“The final effect of Mortal Companions is a curious mix of bone-deep sadness and sustained vitality. For though the struggle be long and hard and uphill all the way, in the very act of writing these poems, in trying to grapple with and rise above the flawed world and the flawed lives we inhabit, Fishman insists on the validity of human dignity.” — W. D. Ehrhart, WIN, February 1978

“[Fishman] emerges as an astonishing craftsman and a human being of unusual sensitivity, empathy, and courage. These poems show us how to grieve.” — Brown Miller, Small Press Review, May 1978

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Anthology:

Blood to Remember (2007):

“From Marjorie Agosin, the Chilean daughter of Jewish refugees from Odessa and Vienna, to John Ciardi, Anthony Hecht, Philip Levine and Barnett Zumoff, the famed New York Albert Einstein professor of endocrinology, the sheer brilliance of dozens of poets in 478 pages defies description. What's almost as amazing, though, is the labor and love that went into an almost letter-perfect copy —with not a single typographical error yet found in hundreds of poems, footnotes, biographical notes and acknowledgments. Without a doubt, this 630-plus page compilation of Holocaust poems is the most remarkable literary feat of this memorial genre I'm privileged to own.” — Alyssa A. Lappen, Amazon.com, October 2007

“The poets in this amazing anthology seek to educate, inform, and illuminate. Whether poignant, horrifying, or rage-filled, their poetry speaks truth. The Glossary and Poem Notes are helpful and packed with valuable information. Blood to Remember should be mandatory reading in every high school, college, and seminary in the world. Charles Adés Fishman has compiled a highly recommended, life changing work here.” — Laurel Johnson, Midwest Book Review, November 2007

“The second edition of Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, edited by Charles Adés Fishman, is an important book. Important, of course, because of its subject. But also important because of the voices it contains, the testimonies it raises, the memories it enshrines, the issues it forces us to confront. In Blood to Remember the living speak for the dead, and therefore the dead are not forgotten, cannot be forgotten, will not be forgotten. Blood to Remember is not a book that I can "recommend" on some sort of star system. [It] is not a book to be "recommended," but quite simply a book that must read. This is a book of human compassion for human beings, and of our ultimate responsibility to each other.” — Michael Burch, TheHyperTexts.com, November 2007

"Charles Fishman's anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (newly published in a revised edition by Time Being Books) is a massive collection containing many fine poems. These poems speak to us with renewed urgency in a time when an effort is being made to wipe out memory. . . . As a monument to the dead of the Holocaust, Blood to Remember is also a testament to poetry's vital role as a keeper of memory." — Esther Cameron, The Deronda Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall-Winter 2007

“Blood to Remember is a necessary and very important book. It should be compulsory reading in senior schools and colleges.” — Peter Thabbit Jones, editor, The Seventh Quarry (Wales)

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Blood to Remember (1991):

"Despite its horrific subject matter, Charles Fishman's collection of Holocaust poems finds its way to beauty through the transforming power of art. Unrelenting in its refusal to compromise with the facts of history, these poems, through their sheer integrity, lend new credence to Keats' old formula, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.'" — Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1991

"Blood to Remember is not just another anthology; it is a wrenching, powerful experience. Fishman deserves praise and gratitude for ferreting out these talented soloists and creating a mighty chorus to serve as a worthy memorial to the victims of the Holocaust." — Haim Chertok, Hadassah Magazine, April 1992

"This volume, with its close to 200 works, recalling various phases and aspects of this dread event, is both a lament and historical treatise, a catharsis and accusatory document. In Professor Fishman's words, this is intended as the 'record of our human refusal to forget what has wounded us beyond repair.' There is little question that he has succeeded admirably." — Sidney Moskowitz, Rockland Center for Holocaust Studies newsletter, April 1992

"The sacred duty of Holocaust remembrance — commemorating the dead, honoring the living, and posing the pertinent theological, ethical, and political questions generated by the Holocaust — is the substance of Charles Fishman's compelling collection of American Holocaust poetry. Fishman successfully assembles works that render a historically remote and often painfully resisted subject in a manner that makes the catastrophe real. One is grateful for the book's sound critical notes, its exploration of the moral implications of the Holocaust and problematics of writing Holocaust poetry, and its witness to the terrifying truths of human history while asserting the indestructibility of the human spirit. Highly recommended.” — S. L. Kremer, Kansas State University, Choice, Jul/Aug '92

“Enter with caution. Reading Charles Fishman’s Blood to Remember can be a difficult, even wrenching, experience. The poets collected here face Adorno’s charge — that writing ‘poetry’ after Auschwitz is barbaric, yet these American responses to the Holocaust, far-ranging in their poetic voices and forms, confirm that poetry can dispel the stupor of historical amnesia. Imagining the unimaginable, uttering the unutterable, they restore faith in memory and reaffirm their role as its powerful guide. If you doubt poetry’s ability to speak history — read this book.” — Robert Franciosi

“This anthology of American Holocaust poetry will be welcomed by both teachers and students, as well as by those merely curious about the Shoah’s resonance in the poetic imagination. Furthermore, its sheer comprehensiveness will make this book a valuable addition to any library.” — Stephen Haynes, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 Winter 1993

“In this compelling work, Charles Fishman draws together an extraordinary and rich chorus of voices that represent the American response to the Holocaust. This arresting collection seems to come from the soul of a single nameless author. The book tracks the Holocaust from the terrifying pogrom known as Kristallnacht, through the horrifying trail across Europe, to the present. Together, these voices form an eloquent and muscular witness. Like so many who have lost relatives they never knew, I as an American Jew am forever touched by the Holocaust and am thankful to Charles for his heroic perseverance in assembling this collection and for the chance to be a part of it.” — Mark Nepo

"This powerful collection speaks directly to our present task in relation to the Holocaust: how to bring that historically distant event into our immediate sense of our own lives. The rich and varied voices make the past palpable, painful, and real. This text cuts through the bone and to the heart. We should all be grateful for it." — Roger S. Gottlieb

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Translation:

Catlives (1991):

“The translations are wonderful, as I wouldn’t have believed it possible. Thank you so much for the work and, also, for refurnishing my little flowers so carefully with their right names.” — Sarah Kirsch

“Marina Roscher and Charles Fishman [have] succeeded marvelously in transferring the German into English. The translations have given us a stylistically accurate and poetically true version of an excellent book.” — Hans Juergensen

“Reading this rhythmically faithful and inspired translation of Katzenleben, I kept feeling that I was in the voice-presence of one of the holy mad. I will not be able to forget this haunted, poignant, fully human book.” —William Heyen

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The Work As a Whole:

"Charles Fishman has the remarkable power of giving every thought a physical presence on the page." — David Ignatow

Charles Fishman’s poems have a metallic brilliance that is of our age, a lyrical pathos and psychological insight that are of any age. I respect them and recommend them.” — Hayden Carruth

Charles Fishman writes an exceptionally resonant and lyrical poetry of the night and all that we associate with darkness: the human inability to see and understand, especially the great suffering of others. He reifies and humanizes the darkness of historic tragedy with its cold-blooded statistics.” —Gayle Teller

"Charles Fishman, a man devoted to remembering the Holocaust and its victims, is a lyric poet whose poems I identify as Jewish in the most profound sense. The poet is an elegiac poet and one who is primarily anxious and urgent and angry with history. For this poet, the family is central, and the cultural standards are prophetic anticipation and a kind of messianic hopeless-ness. The age, for this poet, is always dark. And his poems compete with this darkness." — David Shapiro

“As I see it, you are the great poet of Judaism today as Nelly Sachs was in her day. Your most passionate poems speak of and from the profound experience of being a Jew in the Twentieth Century.” — Lynn Strongin (2005)

“Charles Fishman is a great poet. In an age of creeping relativism, aesthetic and otherwise, this is probably a suspect, not to mention a politically incorrect, statement. We’ve been conditioned to believe that there are no truly legendary or iconic poets anymore. After all, they all died out, those true literary giants, with the end of Modernism — didn’t they? The Williamses and the Stevenses and the Eliots. But the fact is that Charles Fishman is a great poet, a contemporary Eliot struggling to make sense out of the Wasteland of our age, which is still, indubitably, the Holocaust. And, frankly, he succeeds.” — Terri Brown-Davidson, Pedestal Magazine, June 2005

“It’s certainly been a pleasure and an honor to work with you. You’re one of a handful of poets I know whose work goes beyond mere art to becoming a force. Poetry that can change a man’s heart or his conviction or his sense of history perhaps in the end can change the world.” — Michael Burch, Publisher, The Hypertexts (www.thehypertexts.com), January 2006