Looking Back, Going Forward: New and Selected Poems

by Herman Taube

The work of poet and novelist Herman Taube reveals the inner world of a tormented yet loving soul, a world of deep richness and passion. Looking Back, Going Forward includes recent English translations of poems Taube originally wrote in Polish and Yiddish about his World War II experiences in Poland, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Pomerania. It also includes poems dealing with emigration to the United States in 1947, his continuing work as a journalist, and a life that has been dedicated to service in Jewish communities and his expanding family.

Distributed for Dryad Press.

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2002

Reviews

[Mazal]

Before this memoir I hadn't known that Jews were also conscripted into the Red Army. He talks a lot about the physical suffering, especially during the wintertime, but also their Polish pride in the face of Soviet repression. The "after" poems are very emotional... though his Holocaust experience differed from the stereotypical/Hollywood story, the endpoint was somehow the same. A life pieced back together as best one can, and an overwhelming grief that separates one from the rest of society as much as this is not ideal. I was able to dedicate Holocaust Remembrance day to reading this all in one go, but it is not necessary to do so.

Take your time with this book if you feel called to! The poems tell the story beautifully.

[Arnie Kahn]

If I were to rate these poems as poetry I'd give the book one star. Throughout the book, each couplet is a sentence. However, he first two sections comprising most of this book, "Siberia 1939-1942" and "Uzbekistan, Russia & Poland, 1942-1945," originally written in Yiddish or Polish, provides a horrific view of suffering as Polish soldiers were shipped to Siberia and then moved across Eastern Europe, finally back to Poland. It's worth a read to see how much suffering prisoners of first Germans and then Russians experienced.