This article appeared in the April 25, 2003 Jewish Advocate.

Local poets to read on Yom HaShoah

at Holocaust Memorial

by Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

In a literary tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, several area poets will read from their works this Tuesday, Yom HaShoah, at the downtown Holocaust Memorial from noon-1 p.m.

Spearheaded by poet and North End resident Jack Powers, the event, which also honors National Poetry Month, was held in 2001. Returning this year will be Powers, local poetry event organizers Doug Holder and Harris Gardner, Cambridge’s Out of the Blue Gallery co-owner Deborah Priestly, professor and author Marc Widershein, local poet Rafael Wolf, poet/activist Marc Goldfinger, and others.

“Every morning I run my fingers over the glass of the memorial and pray,” said Powers, who has led Cambridge-based Stone Soup Poetry for over 30 years. Powers believes that neo-Nazi Leo Felton may have targeted the 2001 reading. “On his kitchen table, they found the Holocaust Memorial noted, and the month of April circled. We were the only scheduled event there that April.” Boston police arrested Felton, 30, and accomplice Erica Chase, 21, that month as they tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at an East Boston Dunkin' Donuts. At the time, US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan detailed the duo’s alleged plans to attack on Jewish and African-American affiliated sites which included the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge and the New England Holocaust Memorial near Faneuil Hall.

Brookline resident and West Hartford, Connecticut native Rafael Wolf joined the New Writer’s Collective, which met from 1971 to 2002 at the Community Church of Boston, in 1981. His book I Wish that my Room had a Floor was published by Stone Soup Poetry in 1995. Another, Rent Free, published in 1986 by Street Magazine Publications, chronicles Wolf’s experiences in poverty. He self-published seven other books of poetry and completed a one-act play, Cain, in 2001. He also edited and published the work of local mime and poet Bill Barnum in 1987; his poetry and articles have been published frequently in the Cambridge-based homeless publication Spare Change News.

Chronically low-income due to an anxiety disorder, he ate at church dinners for the homeless for ten years. “I got to know them, and when I started working with Spare Change News, I began to write about it. “Education is crucial,” said Wolf, who was Orthodox for many years and continues to write on Judaic topics. “I believe it is especially important to educate people about the Holocaust.”

Framingham native Priestly, the author of several books of poetry, runs the Out of the Blue Gallery at 106 Prospect St. in Cambridge with Tom Tipton, a lively venue known for its support of many types of performance and art.

Long Island native Holder, who holds an M.A. in Literature from the Harvard Extension School, wrote his master's thesis on Henry Roth. “From studying the man and his work, I learned to use my Jewish background as a rich vein of material," he said. Holder, who runs Somerville’s Ibbetson Street Press, hosts a Somerville cable TV show on local writers and heads the monthly poetry series at the Newton Free Library, is also a mental health counselor at McLean Hospital.

Widershien grew up near Franklin Field in the 1950s; his mother and aunt edited Chai Odom Synagogue's Bulletin. "It was there, in this social meeting place and refuge, that I, in a most inscrutable way, found my love of writing, and my earliest political fervency," he said. Widershien, whose book “The Life of All Worlds,” an epic poem about this time, has been a runaway local best-seller.

Goldfinger, a Belmont resident, grew up in Livingston, New Jersey, in an Orthodox-influenced family. Executive Editor of Spare Change Magazine for many years, the nonviolence activist has published five poetry books and co-produced a poetry/jazz CD with local jazz musician Jeff Robinson.

"marc goldfinger" junkietroll@yahoo.com

My mother was from an orthodox family, the Snow family from New York City. One of her brothers became an orthodox rabbi. I knew him as Uncle Sooky. My father was Jewish but Reform was really too strict for him. I grew up in Livingston New Jersey and was Bar Mitzvahed at Temple Emmanuel in Livingston. I started writing poetry in junior high school and never stopped.

Because of my previous lifestyle, everything I wrote from 1962 to 1982 has been lost forever. I started doing readings a long time ago. I wrote a book of poetry while I was in prison for drugs (all non-violent crimes) in 82-83. It is called Poison Pen -- Writings from Prison. I did some readings in prison. They were pretty exciting.

I was active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era. I was also a member of Clamshell Alliance and did direct action at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. I have been a practitioner of non-violence for most of my life. It is a practice for most of us. It does not come naturally to the human species. I write poetry because I am compelled to do this. I believe it is a gift. Like the poet Jack Spicer said, "We are merely the dictation machines for the gods."

I am taking part in this reading because I believe that the war machine drains the human species of all its vital resources and will doom us to extinction or something close to it if it is not stopped. I am against all war. It is past time. The human species needs to grow up.

The Big Lie

For Bradley Smith and all the Holocaust deniers

By Rafael Wolf

You’re trying to convince everyone that the Holocaust never happened

Never mind that that’s a bunch of hogwash; I want to know:

What are you doing with the rest of the people the Holocaust killed?

There were the physically and mentally handicapped, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and non-Jewish political dissidents as well.

The gas ovens were reserved for the Jews,

But for the others, there was always the machine gun,

Or being worked to death.

So tell me, do you only hate Jews,

Or do you, like Hitler’s Aryans, hate everybody?

The Jewish Gravedigger, Lomazy, Poland 1942

Marc Goldfinger

The heat is oppressive on this day in Lomazy.

I dig this giant pit with others while my wife

and son wait, guarded by Germans on the

athletic field, where we once ran and

played. The Germans have brought

us all out and they stand and walk

about, posturing and posing for

photos. I know they mean to

kill us, but perhaps if I dig

this grave for my friends

and relatives they will

let me and my family

live. Perhaps if I dig

they won't kill us

all. I will pray

as I dig that

God will

not let

this

be.

The Crystal Lily

Marc Widershien

So many stark beautiful faces

gone into the worlds of light.

Man made art out of the materials:

rockweed, anemones, the herring gull

pink coral, the bark of a tree--

until the jackboot summoned you

to the kingdom of the night.

The child who saw the skeleton in the mirror

still haunts us with a question:

What have you done with my life?

A pond crystalled with lilies

or a swamp maddened by flesh

rotting into rags--it was here

that the madman found his destiny.

The child we were asks us,

What have you done with our lives?

Blackened sun against a full sky

of suns too numerous to count,

too radiant for our eyes--

Jerusalem, grieve a moment

a millenium, generations

of the Diaspora--grieve

then go on.