Where Lightning Strikes: Poems on The Holocaust

By Dr. Alexandria Szeman

About Where Lightning Strikes
The poems in this collection revisit the classic themes that have inspired poets for generations: love, passion, betrayal, doubt, loyalty, despair, faith, and survival — this time in the context of the period before, during, and after the Holocaust with its systematic persecution and extermination of the majority of European Jewry by the Nazi regime.

Szeman's themes, though set, in this collection, around the Holocaust, are universal, encompassing the perpetrators', victims', and survivors' perspectives equally insightfully. Though the line-breaks are syllabic — imitating the arbitrary rigidity of the Nazi persecutions as well as of the concentration camps' operations — the language flows passionately over the artificially imposed line-breaks and formal stanzas. The poems' many fans often state that, despite the fact that they may have been initially wary of the subject matter, they were enthralled and shaken by poetry which so clearly & memorably portrays such complex & harrowing events in human history. (formerly writing as "Sherri" Szeman)

Awards
•The Centennial Review Prize for Poetry (Michigan State University) for best poem published in 1984
• The Isabel & Mary Neff Fellowship for Creative Writing 1984-1985
• Elliston Prize, First Place (University of Cincinnati) 1985
• Elliston Prize, Second Place, 1984
• Elliston Prize, Grand Prize, 1983