April is National Poetry Month - the one time of year when Americans are encouraged to read poetry. So the blogs are filled with poems by Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, and many other favorites. The celebration is not just limited to American poets, but so far German poets have been left out of the festivities.
So my contribution to National Poetry Month is a poem by Gertrud Kolmar. Gertrud Kolmar is practically unknown in America. In fact, there is no English Wikipedia entry for her (yet - it is on my to-do list). She led a rather solitary life in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s and avoided the tumultuous Weimar literary scene. But even so she found some grateful readers for her poetry - including her cousin, Walter Benjamin. Gertrud Kolmar was Jewish, but, for some reason she and her father did not flee Germany in 1938 with the rest of her family. Instead, they were moved into a Judenhaus in Berlin, and then Gertrud was forced into slave labor in a munitions plant. She was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943. She left behind about 100 poems of striking beauty and intensity. Her poems about animals display the precision of a Marianne Moore, but also have the visionary power of Emily Dickinson (with whom she shares a birthday - December 10). In the postwar epoch, Kolmar has been narrowly categorized as a Jewish poet, or worse - a Jewish poetess. In fact, she is one of the greatest lyric poets and deserves the widest exposure.
I made an attempt to translate one of Gertrud Kolmar's poems - Die Dichterin - but could not match the translation by Henry A. Smith. So the translation is Smith's:
Die Dichterin
Du hältst mich in den Händen ganz und gar.
Mein Herz wie eines kleinen Vogels schlägt
In deiner Faust. Der du dies liest, gib acht;
Denn sieh, du blätterst einen Menschen um.
Doch ist es dir aus Pappe nur gemacht,
Aus Druckpapier und Leim, so bleibt es stumm
Und trifft dich nicht mit seinem großen Blick,
Der aus den schwarzen Zeichen suchend schaut,
Und ist ein Ding und hat sein Dinggeschick.
Und ward verschleiert doch gleich einer Braut,
Und ward geschmückt, daß du es lieben magst,
Und bittet schüchtern, daß du deinen Sinn
Aus Gleichmut und Gewöhnung einmal jagst,
Und bebt und weiß und flüstert vor sich hin:
"Dies wird nicht sein." Und nickt dir lächelnd zu.
Wer sollte hoffen, wenn nicht eine Frau?
Ihr ganzes Treiben ist ein einzig: "Du..."
Mit schwarzen Blumen, mit gemalter Brau,
Mit Silberketten, Seiden, blaubesternt.
Sie wußte manches Schönere als Kind
Und hat das schöne andre Wort verlernt. -
Der Mann ist soviel klüger, als wir sind.
In seinen Reden unterhält er sich
Mit Tod und Frühling, Eisenwerk und Zeit;
Ich sage:"Du..." und immer:"Du und ich."
Und dieses Buch ist eines Mädchens Kleid,
Das reich und rot sein mag und ärmlich fahl,
Und immer unter liebem Finger nur
Zerknittern dulden will, Befleckung, Mal.
So steh ich, weisend, was mir widerfuhr;
Denn harte Lauge hat es wohl gebleicht,
Doch keine hat es gänzlich ausgespült.
So ruf ich dich. Mein Ruf ist dünn und leicht.
Du hörst, was spricht.
Vernimmst du auch, was fühlt?
The Woman Poet
You hold me now completely in your hands.
My heart beats like a frightened little bird's
Against your palm. Take heed! You do not think
A person lives within the page you thumb.
To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink,Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb,
And cannot touch you (though the gaze be great
That seeks you from the printed marks inside),
And is an object with an object's fate.And yet it has been veiled like a bride,
Adorned with gems, made ready to be loved,
Who asks you bashfully to change your mind,
To wake yourself, and feel, and to be moved.But still she trembles, whispering to the wind:
"This shall not be." And smiles as if she knew.
Yet she must hope. A woman always tries,
Her very life is but a single "You . . ."With her black flowers and her painted eyes,
With silver chains and silks of spangled blue.
She knew more beauty when a child and free,
But now forgets the better words she knew.A man is so much cleverer than we,
Conversing with himself of truth and lie,
Of death and spring and iron-work and time.
But I say "you" and always "you and I."This book is but a girl's dress in rhyme,
Which can be rich and red, or poor and pale,
Which may be wrinkled, but with gentle hands,
And only may be torn by loving nails.So then, to tell my story, here I stand.
The dress's tint, though bleached in bitter lye,
Has not all washed away. It still is real.
I call then with a thin, ethereal cry.You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?
- Gertrud Kolmar (translated by Henry A. Smith)
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