A. M. Klein: Selected Poems (review)

Book Reviews 155 Taub's work is an extremely important one. For this reason, the two sections of the introduction, "The Problematic of Holocaust Drama," and "Israeli Theater and the Holocaust," might have been a bit more expansive. The anthology would be helped by a somewhat more extended discussion ofhow the plays chosen reflect both the aesthetic and historical concerns ofthe authors and how these reflect changing times and attitudes in the Jewish state. In addition, Taub might provide a bit more information on Israel's most recent attempts to confront the Holocaust in the theatre. There have been a number of controversial Israeli productions in the 1990s, such as Arbeit Macht Frei. How do these relate to the earlier works anthologized here? Is there a reason that Taub did not anthologize any of these avant-garde works? Furthermore, Taub's introductory essay on the problematics of Holocaust drama needs a bit more explication in light of the large body of worldwide dramatic literature that deals with this subject matter. These minor suggestions aside, Michael Taub's Israeli Holocaust Drama, like Robert Skloot's The Theatre of the Holocaust and Elinor Fuchs's Plays of the Holocaust, is a required anthology, especially for anyone who wishes to understand how Israeli dramatists confronted the Holocaust in the post-war era. Alvin Goldfarb College of Fine Arts Illinois State University A. M. Klein: Selected Poems, edited by Zailig Pollock, Seymour Mayne, and Usher Caplan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. 197 pp. $40.00 (c); $19.95 (p). You certainly can't tell this book by its cover: from the rooftop of some urban building (presumably in Montreal) a statue of some feathered figure-part angel, part Indianoverlooks the blank cityscape. Perhaps, after all, this uninviting cover does capture one aspect of A. M. Klein's poetry. The 84 poems collected in this volume, however, offer a fine selection of Klein's achievement in their balance ofhis early and later poems, Jewish and French-Canadian verse. It might seem unusual that three editors were required to select these poems, but this committee of critic, poet, and biographer has chosen well. In addition, they supplement their judicious selection with 35 pages of notes to assist the reader with Klein's allusions, and a brief introduction highlighting his 'themes of community, modernism, and dialectical sensibility. For more detailed explanatory notes the reader should consult the Complete Poems, The first poem, "Portraits ofa Minyan," offers witty sketches often different types of Jews, beginning with the Landlord whom the poet satirizes as a great scholar but harsh capitalist. The young Klein borrows from T. S. Eliot, or perhaps anticipates him: 156 He is a learned man, adept At softening the rigid. Purblind, he scorns the rashi script, His very nose is digit. He justifies his point of view With verses pedagogic; His thumb is double-jointed through Stressing a doubtful logic. He quotes the commentaries, yea, To Tau from Aleph,But none the less, his tenants pay, Or meet the bailiff. SHOFAR Fall 1998 Vol. 17, No. I Balance and symmetry are hallmarks of this youthful verse that delights in its intimacy and distances through its critique ofcapitalism. Klein knows how to soften the rigid and displace one sense with another, so that the landlord's eyes give way to his nose which becomes a fmger-a pointer in the wrong direction. Stanza two picks up that "point of view" and reinforces the digit as a double-joined thumb-this doublejoint referring both to the landlord's hypocrisy and to the poet's double vision, at once inside and outside the Minyan. In the fmal stanza the poet questions the landlord's misguided directions and priorities, Tau preceding Aleph, and the reader is prepared for Klein's deeper, more sinister explorations of doubles and seconds in his more mature poetry. Even in "Pintele Yid" Klein captures the paradoxical, dual nature ofhis subject and his attitude to it: Agnostic, he would never tire To cauterize the orthodox; But he is here, by paradox, To say the Kaddish for his sire. The next poem, "Out of the Pulver and the Polished Lens," demonstrates Klein's energetic experimenting with...