Book excerpt: Poetry. Jewish Studies. "RABBI AUSCHWITZ is not so much a book about the historical Shoah as it is about the psyche of 'a Jew who died fifty years too soon' and who now considers his pen 'an oracular divining rod' that may or may not 'stave off spiritual asphyxia.' 'It's all about the darkness of the mantra/Which takes him away from himself,' and as we listen to the best poems here and observe 'toxic psychosis' that still desires a reason for being, we are appalled, complicit, nauseated, and gratefully ambivalent as we, by way of Brodsky's pounding and insistent voice, 'survive forgetting' to remember"--William Heyen.