Devant les grilles : les poètes juifs américains et la Shoah
Rubin, Steven J.
Devant les grilles : les poètes juifs américains et la Shoah - 2009.
94
Throughout history, Jewish literature has served as an effective vehicle for recalling a past that has often been traumatic. Like other Jewish writers, American Jewish poets have understood that the creative act can play a vital role in the process of remembering, a process that has often been necessary for survival. As the contemporary poet Gerald Stern states : “It is the poet’s job to remember… that is, to keep the past alive.” This task is not unique to poets. It is, however, interesting to note that a great many late twentieth and early twenty-first century American Jewish poets have sought through their art to imagine and somehow decipher the meaning of the loss of a culture and of six million Jewish lives. And it may be that poetry, free from the constraints of characterization, plot, setting, and verisimilitude, is the ideal form to explore and recall the most traumatic event in modern Jewish history. This essay will explore how two accomplished but very different American Jewish poets —Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) and Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) —came to view the Shoah as one of their major poetic pre-occupations.
Devant les grilles : les poètes juifs américains et la Shoah - 2009.
94
Throughout history, Jewish literature has served as an effective vehicle for recalling a past that has often been traumatic. Like other Jewish writers, American Jewish poets have understood that the creative act can play a vital role in the process of remembering, a process that has often been necessary for survival. As the contemporary poet Gerald Stern states : “It is the poet’s job to remember… that is, to keep the past alive.” This task is not unique to poets. It is, however, interesting to note that a great many late twentieth and early twenty-first century American Jewish poets have sought through their art to imagine and somehow decipher the meaning of the loss of a culture and of six million Jewish lives. And it may be that poetry, free from the constraints of characterization, plot, setting, and verisimilitude, is the ideal form to explore and recall the most traumatic event in modern Jewish history. This essay will explore how two accomplished but very different American Jewish poets —Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) and Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) —came to view the Shoah as one of their major poetic pre-occupations.
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