Poet reads from collection about the Holocaust

Poet Charles Ad/s Fishman spoke at the Queensborough Community College Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives about the Holocaust poetry collection “Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust” on Sunday, March 9.
The first edition of the book came out in 1991, with a second edition recently released. However, Fishman first had the idea for a book dedicated to poetry about the Holocaust back in 1971 when he realized nothing of that nature existed.
Fishman dedicated the recent reading and lecture at Queensborough in memory of Stephen Feinstein, the director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, who passed away on March 4.
In putting the anthology together, Fishman said that he listened to many survivors and people who cared about the Holocaust. He said that the latest version of “Blood to Remember” features poems from second and third generation survivors and others who were not as close to it.
“Poetry, at its best, resists abstraction and permits us to feel again, to be wounded again, and, though never entirely, to heal,” Fishman read from his preface. “As with all serious attempts to comprehend the destruction of the Jews in Europe, in the end Holocaust poetry is a bridge between that which can be known and expressed and that which cannot.”
After reading several of the poems from “Blood to Remember” and sharing background information from the others about their works, Fishman took questions from the audience. During that time he spoke about the importance of keeping the Holocaust real for people.
“We must continue to learn, we must continue to keep the reality of what happened as a presence in our lives,” Fishman said. “We must not let go.”
For more information on “Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust” and Fishman’s other works, visit www.charlesfishman.com.
To find out more about the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives and its programming, call 718-281-5770 or e-mail hrc@qcc.cuny.edu.