Chisel of Remembrance: Poems by Vera Schwarcz

Abstract

, the poem "Passing On," the broth 1 ers lament their relationship with , their father, for he was "difficult 1 always to satisfyand relax? / how i impossible to talk to, in fact,how 1 expert with silence." The Mower viv i idlydemonstrates Andrew Motion's , illuminating discovery of his own voice and his gift of voice to both , his father's generation and today's, 1 a gift that renders this collection i worthy of perusal. 1 Matilda Saenz i Mountain View College,Dallas i Pedra foguera: Antologia de poe , sia jove dels Paisos Catalans. Enric 1 Casasses, preface. Palma de Mallorca, i Spain. Federaci? Llull /Documenta Bale 1 ar. 2008. 201 pages. 7. isbn978-84 ! 96841-65-9 i "Pedra foguera" in Catalan means , "flint stone"?the actual stone, not 1 the cartoon. This is an anthol , ogy of young poets (under thirty) 1 from the Catalan-speaking lands, i which include not only Catalonia 1 but also Valencia in southeastern i Spain and the Balearic Islands as well (the anthology was published i inMallorca). , Pedra foguera is an anthology 1 of poets more than an anthology i of poems. There are twenty-eight 1 authors included, all of them repre i sented by a picture, a brief statement ' of poetics, an autobiographical note, i and three poems, most of which , were previously unpublished. But it 1 is,above all, an anthology fortheedi , tors: all themembers of the anthol 1 ogy's five-person editorial board are i included in the volume. An elder ' poet-performer, Enric Casasses? i one of themost respected voices of , the Catalan scene?celebrates their 1 appearance in his preface. , Poet Gabriel Ferrater used to 1 say that in a literary world as small as Catalan's, a single author was turned into a literary movement. Do theseyoung poets represent twenty eight literarymovements? By no means. If one were to take their poetics seriously, their definitions ofwhat poetry is range fromadoles cent naivete, such as Ivette Nadal's "Patiment + Filosofia = Poesia" (Suf fering+ philosophy = poetry) to the ironically intriguing, such as Pere Antoni Pons's: "La poesia consisteix a expressar els misteris i les passions de la vida sense fergaire el ridicul" (Poetry is a way to express life's pas sions and mysteries without making a foolof oneself). Some of the poets represent ed here, such as Pere Antoni Pons, Josep Pedrals, Marti Sales, Carles Rebassa, and Jaume C. Pons Alorda, have published several books, and their careers continue to show much promise. Pedrals and Rebassa, as well as others such as Bianca Llum Vidal and Clara Fontanet, often read and perform their work inpublic. On theone hand, ifthisanthol ogy makes anything clear, it is that contemporary Catalan poetry is alive, with plenty of young poets, some of them promising. On the other, for those poets included in Pedra Foguerawho have yet topub lish much of theirpoetry, threeshort poems is far too short a sample to perceive whether or not their flint will lightan enduring fire. Melcion Mateu New YorkUniversity Vera Schwarcz. Chisel of Remem brance: Poems. Simsbury, Connecticut. Antrim. 2009. ix+ 76 pages. $16. isbn 978-0-9817883-2-6 Vera Schwarcz is a Jewishhistorian and poet who has built a formidable reputation on an impressive list of publications, including the prize pedra foguera antologia de poesia jove dels paisos Catalans winning Bridge across Broken Time: Chinese and JewishCultural Memory (1999). Her poetry blends a wom an's sensitivity and imagination, a Jew's religious piety, the erudition of a multilingual scholar, and the deep sense of responsibility in a child ofHolocaust survivors. Chisel ofRemembrance, the titleof her lat est volume of poems, manifests a central theme in all of Schwarcz's work?namely, "the quest for remembrance." Schwarcz incorporates in these poems remembrances of her childhood and her family mem bers, of the sufferingsof the Jewish people in general, of ancient Juda ism, and of other ancient cultures, especially Chinese culture. These remembrances are more often than not intermingled, sometimes in unexpected ways. In "Hands," for instance, the poet addresses her grandfather, whom she never knew. He "died inbed, / a heart attack. / Jews did not just die / in 1944." The second sentence...