Charles Fishman: "Passing September"

The Poem of the Week is “Passing September” by Charles Fishman, which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2003 issue (Volume IV, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Fishman’s books include The Firewalkers (Avisson Press, 1996), Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (Texas Tech University Press, 1991), Country of Memory (Uccelli Press, 2004), 5,000 Bells (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2004), and The Death Mazurka (Texas Tech, 1989). His other books include Catlives (1991), a translation of Sarah Kirsch’s Katzenleben. His most recent collection, Chopin’s Piano, was published by Time Being Books in 2006. Fishman’s poems, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Georgia Review, New England Review, New Letters, Nimrod, Salmagundi, and Verse.

Charles Fishman created the Visiting Writers Program at the State University of New York at Farmingdale in 1979 and served as director until 1997. Currently, he is a poetry consultant to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, Poetry Editor of New Works Review, and Director of the Distinguished Speakers Program at Farmingdale State.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.