Everything Changes: A spiritual journey

Stan Biderman
Plain View Press 1996
ISBN 0911051872
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (11/05)

Written from deep within the heart, Stan Biderman displays his innermost feelings of pain, struggles, and uncertainly as he recounts his journey through this lifetime. Even though a second generation Holocaust survivor, Biderman looks at the shadows that were cast upon him as his family obsessed with the generational pain and fear.

Although Everything Changes is a book of touching poetry, the pieces are introduced by an interview with Biderman’s parents about the Holocaust and the horror that the family endured. One of poems, The Valley of Thighs, in the beginning of the book portrays the author’s birth and the thrust into life. He connects with his soul not wanting to be born: “I run back to protection, to the maternal thighfield, as I cower for a safe shadow…a 100 years’ war begun long before I glimpsed the first light.” He further laments in another piece: “When I was three the gates slammed shut on my soul.”

Not all of Biderman’s poetry is doom and gloom. One of my favorite pieces is The Dancer which he begins “I am the dancer, hopping lightly from toe to toe. I dance the spirit of God’s song – if you peek, you will see the silhouette of my image, dancing along the top rail of your fence.”

One can’t help but realize that everything does change, however, as Biderman portrays in Everything Changes, release of the past and diligent steps must be taken to regain ones own personal power.

Well written and endearing, Biderman’s words give us hope and encouragement to change.

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