Dialog International

New Translations of Hilde Domin

      I first encountered the poet Hilde Domin in a poetry seminar in Freiburg where we discussed the anthology Doppelinterpretationen - published by Hilde Domin.  The book consists of individual short poems by some of the most important postwar German poets - Günter Eich, Peter Huchel, Ingeborg Bachmann, Nelly Sachs, and - Hilde Domin.  Each poem is followed by a self-interpretation of the poet and then an interpretation by a literary critic.  Hilde Domin's contribution was Lied zur Ermutigung II ('Song for Encouragement II') followed by her own interpretation and then interpreted by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. The short poem is in many ways representative of Hilde Domin's oeuvre.

Lange wurdest du um die türelosen
Mauern der Stadt gejagt.

Du fliehst und streust
Die verwirrten Namen der Dinge
Hinter Dich

Vertrauen, dieses schwerste
ABC.

Ich mache ein kleines Zeichen
In die Luft,
Unsichtbar,
Wo die neue Stadt beginnt,
Jerusalem,
Die goldene,
Aus Nichts

 

This poem contains many of the themes that reoccur in so many of Hilde Domin's poems.  First there is the persecution ("gejagt").  Domin (née Löwenstein) was a Jew, and along with her husband Erwin Walter Palm, was went into exile to flee the Nazi terror ("du fliehst")  leaving behind her German language (for Domin, a kind of Heimat).  Despite losing everything the Lyric-I can learn to trust ("Vertrauen") and evokes the dream home of the Jewish diaspora - Jerusalem.  This sense of optimism in the face of evil and Nothingness ("aus Nichts")  is why Hilde Domin has been called " the poet of "dennoch" ("nevertheless"). 

The book Doppelinterpretationen also has an introductory essay by Domin - Über das Interpretieren von Gedichten - which outlines in abbreviated form some of the ideas in her book on postwar poetics  Wozu Lyrik heute which was in part written as a response - or rejection - of Adornp's famous statement "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." For Domin, poetry after Auschwitz is absolutely essential.  

HIlde Domin is largely unknown in the US and other English-speaking countries, even though her reputation has only grown in Germany, where today she is recognized as an important postwar poet along with Marie-Luise Kaschnitz and Peter Huchel.  Nelly Sachs is better-known here since her poems were published in English translation after she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.  Finally, this year we have TWO bilingual English-German collections of Hilde Domin's poem published here: one- With My Shadow: The Poems of Hilde Domin,  by Sarah Kafatou, a writer and translator who knew Hilde Domin, and also The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin, by Maine poet and German Scholar Mark S. Burrows.  I have read Mark Burrows book but not Sarah Kafatou's translations. Julie Enszer has an interesting piece in the Jewish Book Council comparing both translations. I found The Wandering Radiance extremely valuable, not only for the wonderful translations, but also for the foreword by Hilde Domin's biographer Marion Tauschwitz (see my review of her biography) and Mark Burrows' excellent essay about Domin's life and poetic style.  The book also has a translation of a short essay by Hilde Domin on 'Exile and Homeland' - the two poles she synthesizes in so many of her poems. 

Compared to the work of other postwar poets - notably that of her friend Paul Celan - Domin's poems are accessible, even to some extent 'simple' - "Vollkommenheit im Einfachen" as the critic Walter Jens described them. This explains, to some extent, her popularity in Germany. Mark Burrows has some insightful comments on her style:

"What distinguishes her poetic voice is her startling use of metaphor, unexpected twists of diction, and a syntax often compressed to the point of abruptness. She eschewed rhyme and meter in favor of free verse from the the start, and by her third collection (Hier), published in 1964, had abandoned punctuation almost entirely. The temperament of her poems depends on a distinct musicality shaped largely by the rhythm of speech. Plainness? Perhaps, but one carried by a sense of "fullness: that demands readers' attention in "listening" their way into the sound and pace of her voice - and their own."

"Plainness" with a sense of "fullness" - presents some distinct challenges to the translator. Mark Burrows does a superb job in recreating Hilde Domin's unique poetic voice for the English readers:  Here is Burrows' translation of her poem Wie wenig ich nütze bin: However Little Use I Am

However Little Use I Am

However little use I am,

I lift a finger and leave behind

not even the smallest stroke

in the air.

Time smudges my face,

It has already begun.

Behind my steps in the dust

rain washes the street clean

like a housewife.

I was here

I cross over

without a trace.

The elms along the way

nod to me as I come,

a green a blue a golden greeting,

and forget me

before I’ve passed by.

I cross over-

But leave perhaps the small sound of my voice,

my laughter and my tears

and also the trees’ greeting in the evening

on a small scrap of paper.

And in passing,

entirely without intention,

I light one or another

of the streetlamps

In the hearts along the roadside

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review: Dagmar von Gersdorff's Marie Luise Kaschnitz: Eine Biographie

I always felt I had a good knowledge of postwar German literature, but I knew next to nothing about the work of Marie Luise Kaschnitz (1900-1974), Which is odd, since Kaschnitz was a prolific poet and author - equally admired for her poetry and short stories.  She won every conceivable award in Germany for her work -including the prestigious Georg Büchner-Preis in 1955.  Yet Kaschnitz is not mentioned at all in Peter Demetz's survey Postwar German Literature.  Nor does she appear in Anatol Regnier's Jeder schreibt für sich allein (see my review) - a survey of German authors who remained in Germany during the Third Reich - even thought her first novel - Liebe beginnt - was published in 1933 and was well-received.  I became interested in Kaschnitz after I came across a selection of her late poems translated by the German-American poet Liesel Mueller (1924-2020), whom I very much admire.  I suspect that Kaschnitz is largely passed over today, since her poems- especially her most powerful late ones - are highly personal. 

Liesel Mueller writes in her introduction:

"The switch from "we" to "I" allowed the poet and her persona to come together, as they had not done so before, and to free a lyrical voice that was uniquely hers. Yet there was never any danger of solipsism. She never wavered in her belief that writers must bear witness, nor abandoned her defense of objective values." 

She alluded to this in her acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner-Preis:

"Den billigen Trost, den manche Leser vom Gedicht erwarten, habe ich nie geben wollen, und wenn meine Verse im Gegensatz zu den sogenannten hermetischen oder surrealistischen eher verständlich waren, so hängt das damit zusammen, daß mein Weg in der Lyrik mich von der Natur zum Menschen geführt hat und daß ich nie ganz vergessen konnte, daß ich mich Menschen mitteilte, freilich solchen, die die Mühe des Ungewohnten und nur langsam zu Begreifenden nicht scheuen."

Dagmar von Gersdorf's straightforward biography of Marie Luise Kashnitz does a good job of illuminating the personal aspects of her poetry, often including snippets of her poems while describing key episodes of the poet's long life. I would have liked to see a more critical assessment of her poetry and prose - what made it unique and still speaks to us today.  What also struck me about the biography is the bibliography, which includes hundreds of names: a  Who's Who of postwar German literature and publishing. Kaschnitz had the gift of friendship. She was an early admirer and friend of Paul Celan and attempted to console him during his plagiarism scandal  - and was devastated by his suicide. Kaschnitz was something of a mother figure to Ingeborg Bachmann and supported her through her bipolar mood swings.  Coincidentally Kashnitz died in Rome close to where Ingeborg Bachmann tragically died in a fire (likely suicide as well). Other close friendships include Theodor Adorno and - late in life - the poet Peter Huchel. 

In her long life, Marie Luise Kaschnitz witnessed the death and destruction of war and lost friends and beloved siblings along the way.  But it was the death of her husband - the archeologist Guido von Kashnitz - that nearly silenced her for good.  Dagmar von Gersdorff describes the centrality of the poet's long marriage to Guido in her life. She was completely devoted to him - despite his infidelities.  And for a long period following the death of Guido she was incapable of writing.  But in 1962 she published perhaps her strongest collection of poems Dein Schweigen - meine Stimme - all dealing with the death of her husband. She somehow found her voice (Stimme) again.  As Liesel Muller writes: "The pull of opposing forces, here represented by the longing for death and her native liveliness and curiosity, became characteristic of her poetry,"

Here is the last stanza of her poem "Ich lebte":

                    Angst zu sterben
                    Und Angst zu leben
                    Hielten sich die Waage noch immer.
                    Natur trug unbekümmert ihr altes Gewand
                    Herzzerreißende Schönheit.
                    Das Leben war noch immer ein Geheimnis,
                    Der Tod ein andres.

Poetry Month: The Exile Poems of Mascha Kaléko

During this poetry month we have all been shaken by the images of millions of Ukrainians - mostly women and children - fleeing for their lives, as well as hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens forced into exile to escape the growing totalitarianism of Putin's regime.  So much important German poetry and prose was written in exile.  Heinrich Heine was the first great exile poet,  fleeing the anti-Semitism and provincialism of his homeland to Paris, where he spent the last 25 years of his life.  Like Heine, Mascha Kaléko was a poet who was Jewish.  By 1938 in Berlin, where her career had begun to take off, she realized that her time in Germany was over.  She fled with her family just weeks before Kristallnacht, eventually ending up in New York City.  For 17 years she lived in a 3rd floor walk-up in Greenwich Village.  Had she stayed in Berlin Mascha Kaléko no doubt would have suffered the same fate as Gertrud Kolmar, forced to work as a slave laborer, then murdered in Auschwitz.

You can read more about her work and life here.  I also recommend the 2012  biography by Jutta Rosenkranz.

In her poem Im Exil, Mascha Kaléko pays tribute to the "refugee" (Flüchtling ) Heinrich Heine.  With her biting sarcasm she rhymes a line of  Goethe's Heidenröslein - one of the most famous poems in German literature  - with "Kraftdurchfreude"  (Kraft durch Freude  - "Strength Through Joy " - the name of the Nazi mass leisure organization).  The nightingale  - symbol of German Romanticism - has been replaced by the Nazi vulture.  Like Heine, the poet misses her homeland, her beloved Berlin, but recognizes that the land and city she knew will never be as it was:" (Das wird nie wieder, wie es war).

 

Im Exil - von Mascha Kaléko 

"Ich hatte einst ein schoenes Vaterland" –

So sang schon der Flüchtling Heine.

Das seine stand am Rheine,

Das meine auf maerkischem Sand.

Wir alle hatten einst ein (siehe oben!).

Das frass die Pest, das ist im Sturz zerstoben.

O Roeslein auf der Heide,

Dich brach die Kraftdurchfreude.

Die Nachtigallen wurden stumm,

Sahn sich nach sicherm Wohnsitz um,

Und nur die Geier schreien

Hoch ueber Graeberreihen.

Das wird nie wieder, wie es war,

Wenn es auch anders wird.

Auch, wenn das liebe Gloecklein tönt,

Auch wenn kein Schwert mehr klirrt.

Mir ist zuweilen so, asl ob

Das Herz in mir zerbrach.

Ich habe manchmal Heimweh.

Ich weiss nur nicht, wonach.

"Ich hatte einst ein schoenes Vaterland" –

So sang schon der Flüchtling Heine.

Das seine stand am Rheine,

Das meine auf maerkischem Sand.

 

Wir alle hatten einst ein (siehe oben!).

Das frass die Pest, das ist im Sturz zerstoben.

O Roeslein auf der Heide,

Dich brach die Kraftdurchfreude.

 

Die Nachtigallen wurden stumm,

Sahn sich nach sicherm Wohnsitz um,

Und nur die Geier schreien

Hoch ueber Graeberreihen.

 

Das wird nie wieder, wie es war,

Wenn es auch anders wird.

Auch, wenn das liebe Gloecklein tönt,

Auch wenn kein Schwert mehr klirrt.

 

Mir ist zuweilen so, asl ob

Das Herz in mir zerbrach.

Ich habe manchmal Heimweh.

Ich weiss nur nicht, wonach.

https://lyricstranslate.com

#NationalPoetryMonth Rilke: Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens

I was not familiar with this short fragment of a poem until it was featured last year in the Frankfurter Anthologie. I've been thinking about the poem ever since - it's very short, but dense with meaning.  Rilke wrote Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens just as World War I broke out and in a way it fits with a world faced the terror of war - or a pandemic.  I read that the poem again became popular during the Second World War as entire cities faced an existential threat.  It is an existential poem.  Heidegger's Sein und Zeit wasn't published until 1927, but Rilke's language here anticipates Heidegger's idiosyncratic vocabulary.  "Ausgesetzt " can mean exposed or abandoned, and corresponds to Heideggers "Geworfenheit" ("throwness").  The participial phrase Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens is repeated three times, with the variation at the end "ungeborgen hier auf den Bergen des Herzen".  Geborgenheit ("security", "safety" but also implying comfort) cannot be found here in the rock - above the tree line   ("Steingrund").  Geborgenheit corresponds to Heideggers Heimat - or Homeland - that which is near to us.  But here there is no Homeland; the mountain is unheimlich - so far from home, far from security.  There is life here - the "unknowing herb" able even here to "sing forth" while the poet remains silent.  And there are other mountain animals, secure in their safe and sound consciousness - heilen Bewusstseins. And finally the great "secure" bird, circling the peak. These living creature have the security of their Heimat, denied to the poet.  Man's exile from the Garden is a recurring theme in German literature from the Middle Ages, through Heinrich von Kleist. Über das Marionettentheater. and Nietzsche ( "Weh dem, der keine Heimat hat" .) And then there are the limitation of language ("stummen Absturz", "schweigen", "reine Verweigerung?), expressed earlier by Hugo von Hofmannsthal ("Lord Chandos") and culminating with Wittgenstein's Tractactus, published around the same time as Ausgesetzt. Heidegger admired Rilke for his gift of poetically shaping thought.  The fragment Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens is a perfect example. 

Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens. Siehe, wie klein dort,
siehe: die letzte Ortschaft der Worte, und höher,
aber wie klein auch, noch ein letztes
Gehöft von Gefühl. Erkennst du’s?
Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens. Steingrund
unter den Händen. Hier blüht wohl einiges auf; aus stummem Absturz
blüht ein unwissendes Kraut singend hervor.
Aber der Wissende? Ach, der zu wissen begann
und schweigt nun, ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens.
Da geht wohl, heilen Bewußtseins,
manches umher, manches gesicherte Bergtier,
wechselt und weilt. Und der große geborgene Vogel
kreist um der Gipfel reine Verweigerung. – Aber
ungeborgen, hier auf den Bergen des Herzens...

(Exposed on the mountains of the heart. See, how small there,
see: the last hamlet of words, and higher,
and yet so small, a last
homestead of feeling. Do you recognize it?
Exposed on the mountains of the heart. Rocky earth
under the hands. But something will
flower here; out of the mute abyss
flowers an unknowing herb in song.
But the knowing? Ah, that you who began to understand
and are silent now, exposed on the mountains of the heart.
Yet many an awareness still whole wanders there,
many a self-confident mountain animal
passes through and remains. And that great protected bird
circles about the peaks of pure denial. But
unprotected, here on the mountains of the heart.)

 

The German Roots of Longfellow's Poems on Slavery

No other American poet has suffered such a reversal of fortune in reputation as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  In the 19th Century Longfellow was by far the most popular poet in America.  Millions of Americans had his "Song of Hiawatha" on their bookshelves and could recited long passages by heart.  Yet Longfellow's works were quickly rejected by early 20th century critics as "Victorian dross" as America embraced modernism.  A new book on Longfellow - Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - urges readers to reconsider Longfellow and his legacy.  And there is much to admire about Longfellow the poet and the man.  Longfellow doesn't fit in to the two poles of 19th century American poetry - Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, who created vastly different but distinctly American poetic voices.  Emerson wanted his poetry to connect with the European tradition; he embraced Goethe's concept of Weltliteratur.  He spent years traveling and living in Europe, befriending the leading writers and thinkers of the time.  He was fluent in German as well as at least four other languages. And some of his best poems - poems that resonate still today - were strongly influenced by his European counterparts. 

Following an extended correspondence, Longfellow met Ferdinand Freiligrath, the German revolutionary poet and translator of many of Longfellow’s works into German, on his six-month European tour in 1842. Freiligrath vociferously opposed slavery and expressed his radical political views in his poetry. Longfellow also opposed slavery, but was hardly a "revolutionary poet."  Virtually none of Longfellow's poetry could be called "political."  Nevertheless, Freiligrath convinced Longfellow to pen a poem cycle condemning  slavery - he completed the poems during a stormy return passage to America in 1842.  He wrote to Freiligrath:

.thus ‘cribbed, cabined and confined’ I passed fifteen days. During this time I wrote seven poems on slavery. I meditated them in the stormy, sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil in the morning. A small window in the side of the vessel admitted light into my berth; and there I lay on my back, and soothed my soul with songs.

The seven poems in the Poems on Slavery cycle are certainly among his strongest shorter poems.  My favorite of the seven is the haunting poem The Witnesses: 

In Ocean's wide domains,
Half buried in the sands,
Lie skeletons in chains,
With shackled feet and hands.
Beyond the fall of dews,
Deeper than plummet lies,
Float ships, with all their crews,
No more to sink nor rise.
There the black Slave-ship swims,
Freighted with human forms,
Whose fettered, fleshless limbs
Are not the sport of storms.
These are the bones of Slaves;
They gleam from the abyss;
They cry, from yawning waves,
"We are the Witnesses!"
Within Earth's wide domains
Are markets for men's lives;
Their necks are galled with chains,
Their wrists are cramped with gyves.
Dead bodies, that the kite
In deserts makes its prey;
Murders, that with affright
Scare school-boys from their play!
All evil thoughts and deeds;
Anger, and lust, and pride;
The foulest, rankest weeds,
That choke Life's groaning tide!
These are the woes of Slaves;
They glare from the abyss;
They cry, from unknown graves,
"We are the Witnesses!"

Longfellow's Poems on Slavery were celebrated by northern abolitionists but excoriated by critics and readers in the southern slave states.  Freiligrath was pleased that his friend had followed through on his urging and translated them for the German audience.  I was unable to find Freiligrath's translations of Poems on Slavery, but his translation of Hiawatha ( Der Gesang des Hiawatha) is still available on Amazon.  I did find a recent German translation of Longfellow's The Slave Singing at Midnight by the writer and poet Annelie Kelch:

Was ein Sklave um Mitternacht sang

Hell klang es gen Mitternacht zu mir her ...
Er, ein schwarzer Sklave, sang Davids Psalm -
kniend - zwischen Stein und Halm,
sang vom Sieg Israels, sang inhaltsschwer,
sang von Zion, hell und – frei.

In jener Stunde, als die Nacht am verschwiegensten war,
sang er hebräische Psalmen aus dem jüdischen Kanon.
Sang mit einer Stimme, so süß und so klar:
Ich konnte nicht anders als ihm zu lauschen im Pavillion.

Seine Lieder erzählten vom Triumph -
davon einst die schwarzen Ägypter sangen ...
als vor der Küste am Roten Meer,
der schreckliche Pharao und sein Heer
erfolglos mit dem Tode rangen.

Seine Stimme klang gottergeben, hingebungsvoll,
erfüllte meine Seele mit einem feierlichen Gefühl.
Mal klang sie froh, dann wieder traurig, wild und toll,
mal ernst, mal heiter, mal süß und mal schwül.

Er sang von Paulus und Silas, zwei Missionare, unfrei ...
Im Gefängnis priesen sie den auferstandenen Lord -
bis Gott ein Erdbeben schickte an jenen Ort,
das die Riegel ihres Kerkertors brach entzwei.

„Aber ach, welch' heiliger Engel, my sweet Lord,
würd' uns Sklaven schicken des Evangelisten Wort ...
Und welches Erdbeben bekäme es wohl vollbracht,
dass u n s e r Kerker sich öffnet um Mitternacht ...?“

Mehr hier: https://www.literatpro.de/gedicht/280317/was-ein-sklave-um-mitternacht-singt

Poetry for the Pandemic: Gottfried Benn's Morgue Cycle

More than 75,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 as I write this.  New York City experienced a tsunami of death: people dying while being removed from ambulances, bodies stacked in refrigerated trucks, bodies rotting in apartments where people couldn't or wouldn't find help, crematories breaking down from overuse, unclaimed bodies piled into mass graves in potter's field. Americans are good at hiding, or at least sanitizing death, but that is proving impossible as the nation confronts thousands of deaths each day from the pandemic. 

Gottfried Benn achieved a succès de scandale with his 1912 poetry collection Morgue und andere Gedichte. In these poems the young medical doctor describes scenes that are capable of shocking even today: a drowned girl is opened up to reveal a nest of rats within her body; a dead prostitute has her gold fillings stolen by a mortuary attendant; the corpses of a dead black man and a white woman appear to be aligned in an erotic pose; the visceral remains of dissected corpses are described in detail, a gruesome autopsy procedure is recounted with dark humor.  Even when the patients are living - as in the description of the cancer ward in the poem Mann und Frau gehn durch die Krebsbaracke  -  death is omnipresent:

Hier schwillt der Acker schon um jedes Bett.

Fleisch ebnet sich zu Land. Glut gibt sich fort.

Saft schickt sich an zu rinnen. Erde ruft.

("around each bed soil already begins to soften. Flesh is getting ready for the ground. The glow of life recedes. Sap prepares for its final flow. The earth is calling.")

My favorite poem in the cycle is Kleine Aster ("Little Aster") where Benn negates the exquisite corpse/Ophelia trope with a graphic description of an autopsy of a beer truck driver. Here the "lyrisches Ich" is unmoved by the inert body, lying mute on the slab - he has cut out the tongue - but has compassion for the little flower, inserting it into the chest cavity next to the heart: "Ruhe sanft, kleine Aster!"

Kleine Aster

Ein ersoffener Bierfahrer wurde auf den Tisch gestemmt.
lrgendeiner hatte ihm eine dunkelhellila Aster
zwischen die Zähne geklemmt.
Als ich von der Brust aus
unter der Haut
mit einem langen Messer
Zunge und Gaumen herausschnitt,
muß ich sie angestoßen haben, denn sie glitt
in das nebenliegende Gehirn.
Ich packte sie ihm in die Brusthöhle
zwischen die Holzwolle,
als man zunähte.
Trinke dich satt in deiner Vase!
Ruhe sanft,
kleine Aster!

 

("A drowned driver of a beer truck was dumped onto the table
Someone had stuck a dark-pale lilac-colored aster
Between his teeth
I cut out the tongue and gums
With a long knife
Working from the chest outwards
Under the skin,
I must have touched it, because it slid
Into the brain right next to it.

I packed it into the chest cavity,
Between the wood shavings,
As it was being stitched up.
Drink up in your vase!
Rest sweetly,
Little Aster!)

Poetry for the Pandemic: Rainer Maria Rilke - Der Lesende

April is National Poetry Month, and this April (2020) is unlike any other, with half the world isolated at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Can poetry somehow help us through this period of high anxiety?  Tomasz Kurianowicz wrote an essay in Die Welt about the advantage readers have over others while "sheltering in place" in isolation: "Die Literatur als Impfung" (Literature as Vaccine).

"Gleichzeitig fällt auf, dass es Menschen gibt, die mit der Quarantäne-Situation besser umgehen als andere. Auffallend ist, dass es vor allem die Lesenden sind, also die Introvertierten und Verkopften, die recht gelassen auf die Möglichkeit einer lange währenden Isolation reagieren. Warum? Weil sie gewöhnt daran sind, einsam am Schreibtisch zu sitzen, sich auf dem Sofa mit Bücherstapeln einzudecken und in die Welt der Fantasiekonstrukte hinabzusinken, statt draußen nach flüchtigen Reizen zu suchen."

("At the same time it is apparent that some people are better suited to the quarantine situation than others.  Above all, one notices that it is the Readers - those introverts - who are most relaxed when confronted with the possibility of an extended isolation. Why? Because they are used to sitting alone at a desk, or lying on the couch with a pile of books and immersing themselves in the world of imagination, instead of seeking ephemeral pleasures outside.")

In Rainer Maria Rilke's 1901 poem Der Lesende ("The Man Reading") the words on the printed page function as a conduit to the outer world, fusing the consciousness of the reader with the universe at large.  This is one of the most beautiful poems in the poet's early collection Das Buch der Bilder.

Der Lesende

Ich las schon lang. Seit dieser Nachmittag,
mit Regen rauschend, an den Fenstern lag.
Vom Winde draußen hörte ich nichts mehr:
mein Buch war schwer.
Ich sah ihm in die Blätter wie in Mienen,
die dunkel werden von Nachdenklichkeit,
und um mein Lesen staute sich die Zeit. —
Auf einmal sind die Seiten überschienen,
und statt der bangen Wortverworrenheit
steht: Abend, Abend… überall auf ihnen.
Ich schau noch nicht hinaus, und doch zerreißen
die langen Zeilen, und die Worte rollen
von ihren Fäden fort, wohin sie wollen…
Da weiß ich es: über den übervollen
glänzenden Gärten sind die Himmel weit;
die Sonne hat noch einmal kommen sollen. —
Und jetzt wird Sommernacht, soweit man sieht:
zu wenig Gruppen stellt sich das Verstreute,
dunkel, auf langen Wegen, gehn die Leute,
und seltsam weit, als ob es mehr bedeute,
hört man das Wenige, das noch geschieht.

Und wenn ich jetzt vom Buch die Augen hebe,
wird nichts befremdlich sein und alles groß.
Dort draußen ist, was ich hier drinnen lebe,
und hier und dort ist alles grenzenlos;
nur dass ich mich noch mehr damit verwebe,
wenn meine Blicke an die Dinge passen
und an die ernste Einfachheit der Massen, —
da wächst die Erde über sich hinaus.
Den ganzen Himmel scheint sie zu umfassen:
der erste Stern ist wie das letzte Haus.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926),
September 1901, Westerwede

THE MAN READING

  I’ve read long now. Since this afternoon,

  with its rain rushing, lay against the windows.

  I’d become oblivious to the wind outside:

  my book was hard.

  I gazed into its lines as into faces

  whose looks grow dark from deep reflection,

  and around my reading the hours built up.—

  Suddenly now brightness spills upon the pages,

  and instead of the fearful word-confusion

  stands: evening, evening … everywhere upon them.

  I keep my eyes fixed, and yet the long lines

  tear apart, and the words roll away

  from their threads, to wherever they will …

  Then I know: over the overfull

  glittering gardens the skies are vast;

  the sun was to have broken through once more.—

  And now summer night sets in, as far as one can see:

  what’s dispersed collects into a few groups,

  darkly, on long paths, people wander,

  and strangely far-off, as if it meant more,

  one hears the little that still transpires.

  And when now I lift my eyes from the book,

  nothing will seem alien, everything great.

  There outside exists, what here inside I live,

  and here and there the whole of things is boundless;

  save that I weave myself still more with it

  when my gaze shapes itself to objects

  and to the grave simplicity of masses,—

  then the earth grows out beyond itself.

  It seems to encompass the entire night sky:

  the first star is like the last house.

Pandemic Poetry: Friedrich Schiller's Die Pest. Eine Fantasie

Besides being the greatest dramatist in German literature, Friedrich Schiller was a trained physician.  By 1783 when he wrote the poem Die Pest, the plague or Black Death that had been ravaging Europe for centuries had subsided.  The pathogen had still not been discovered, but Schiller's reference to Gift’ger Nebel (poisonous mists) references the state of science of infectious diseases at the time.  Die Pest employs some of the common themes and images of baroque poetry, but the last line - Schröcklich preiset Gott die Pest - would seem to indicate a degree of ambivalence, or cynicism, with respect to religious faith.

            Friedrich Schiller: „Die Pest. Eine Fantasie“

Gräßlich preisen Gottes Kraft
   Pestilenzen würgende Seuchen,
Die mit der grausen Brüderschaft
   Durchs öde Tal der Grabnacht schleichen.

Bang ergreifts das klopfende Herz,
Gichtrisch zuckt die starre Sehne,
Gräßlich lacht der Wahnsinn in das Angstgestöhne,
   In heulende Triller ergeußt sich der Schmerz.

Raserei wälzt tobend sich im Bette –
Gift’ger Nebel wallt um ausgestorbne Städte
   Menschen – hager – hohl und bleich –
   Wimmeln in das finstre Reich.
Brütend liegt der Tod auf dumpfen Lüften,
Häuft sich Schätze in gestopften Grüften
   Pestilenz sein Jubelfest.
Leichenschweigen – Kirchhofstille
Wechseln mit dem Lustgebrülle,
   Schröcklich preiset Gott die Pest.

 

(Plague's contagious murderous breath
God's strong might with terror reveals,
As through the dreary valley of death
With its brotherhood fell it steals!

Fearfully throbs the anguish-struck heart,
Horribly quivers each nerve in the frame;
Frenzy's wild laughs the torment proclaim,
Howling convulsions disclose the fierce smart.

Fierce delirium writhes upon the bed
Poisonous mists hang o'er the cities dead;
Men all haggard, pale, and wan,
To the shadow-realm press on.
Death lies brooding in the humid air,
Plague, in dark graves, piles up treasures fair,
And its voice exultingly raises.
Funeral silence churchyard calm,
Rapture change to dread alarm.
Thus the plague God wildly praises!}

German-American Poet Lisel Mueller is Dead

 Lisel Mueller came to America as a young girl after her family was forced to flee the Nazis.  English was her second language; she managed to master it well enough to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1997.  She died in her adopted city of Chicago yesterday at the age of 96.

"Lisel Mueller fled Germany at 15 and came to America, where she wrote in her poem “Curriculum Vitae”:

“In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually

I caught up with them.”

She caught up and more, using her “new language” to craft ravishing poems in English that would win her the Pulitzer Prize and many other literary awards.

“I think it is the poet’s job to find the unconscious spring that unites all people,” she once told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ms. Mueller, who was living at the Admiral at the Lake retirement home, died Friday of aftereffects of pneumonia, according to her daughter Jenny. She was 96.

“She’s a classic American immigrant success story,” her daughter said, “and also the classic story not just of immigrant success but also of refugee contribution to this country’s culture.”"

Here is her 1992 autobiographical poem Curriculum Vitae in its entirety: 

Lisel Mueller - 1924-2020

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into 
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of 
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The 
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building 
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.

5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.

6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones 
and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.

7) My country was struck by history more deadly than 
earthquakes or hurricanes.

8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother 
told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.

9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights 
of adolescence.

10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun 
and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed 
behind in darkness.

11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually 
I caught up with them.

12) When I met you, the new language became the language 
of love.

13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. 
The daughter became a mother of daughters.

14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying 
threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left 
unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate 
present.

15) Years and years of this.

16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an 
old man's loneliness.

17) And then my father too disappeared.

18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my 
childhood, but it was closed to the public.

19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger 
than mine.

20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are 
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.

A Poem for Winter: Mörike - An einem Wintermorgen vor Sonnenaufgang

In this poem Eduard Mörike (number 6 of the Top Ten German Poets) captures perfectly that moment between sleep and waking, when the mind is still in a dreamlike state.  The poem also has one of the most beautiful opening lines in all of German poetry - O flaumenleichte Zeit der dunkeln Frühe! - poorly translated as  "O downy-soft time of early morning darkness!".  In the winter darkness the mind is all potential and anticipation (Dem Eindruck naher Wunderkräfte offen) . But the poetic persona  (lyrisches ich) is still captivated by the dream images which swim in his mind like goldfish in a pond (Goldfarbgen Fischlein gleich im Gartenteiche). Soon the mind is slowly awakened to the outside wolrd as the sounds of Christmas begin to fill the darkness, and the dream suddenly vanishes ( Es ist ein Augenblick, und alles wird verwehn!) Throughout the poem the 21-year-old Mörike makes creative use of metaphor  (Kristall ,Gürtel blauer Luft,Goldfarbgen Fischlein, lichte Feenreiche) including an astonishing,  erotically-charged image of "half-opened purple lip" as the sun rises on the horizon (Die Purpurlippe, die geschlossen lag / Haucht, halbgeöffnet, süsse Atemzüge).  Daylight has displaced the dream, the sun begins its royal flight and the poet is now in full command of his creative power ("Der Genius jauchzt in mir!"). 

An einem Wintermorgen vor Sonnenaufgang

O flaumenleichte Zeit der dunkeln Frühe!
Welch neue Welt bewegest du in mir?
Was ist's, dass ich auf einmal nun in dir
Von sanfter Wollust meines Daseins glühe?

Einem Kristall gleicht meine Seele nun,
Den noch kein falscher Strahl des Lichts getroffen;
Zu fluten scheint mein Geist, er scheint zu ruhn,
Dem Eindruck naher Wunderkräfte offen,
Die aus dem klaren Gürtel blauer Luft
Zuletzt ein Zauberwort vor meine Sinne ruft.

Bei hellen Augen glaub ich doch zu schwanken;
Ich schliesse sie, dass nicht der Traum entweiche.
Seh ich hinab in lichte Feenreiche?
Wer hat den bunten Schwarm von Bildern und Gedanken
Zur Pforte meines Herzens hergeladen,
Die glänzend sich in diesem Busen baden,
Goldfarbgen Fischlein gleich im Gartenteiche?

Ich höre bald der Hirtenflöten Klänge,
Wie um die Krippe jener Wundernacht,
Bald weinbekränzter Jugend Lustgesänge;
Wer hat das friedenselige Gedränge
In meine traurigen Wände hergebracht?

Und welch Gefühl entzückter Stärke,
Indem mein Sinn sich frisch zur Ferne lenkt!
Vom ersten Mark des heutgen Tags getränkt,
Fühl ich mir Mut zu jedem frommen Werke.
Die Seele fliegt, so weit der Himmel reicht,
Der Genius jauchzt in mir! Doch sage,
Warum wird jetzt der Blick von Wehmut feucht?
Ist's ein verloren Glück, was mich erweicht?
Ist es ein werdendes, was ich im Herzen trage?

Hinweg, mein Geist! hier gilt kein Stillestehn:
Es ist ein Augenblick, und alles wird verwehn!

Dort, sieh, am Horizont lüpft sich der Vorhang schon!
Es träumt der Tag, nun sei die Nacht entflohn;
Die Purpurlippe, die geschlossen lag,
Haucht, halbgeöffnet, süsse Atemzüge:
Auf einmal blitzt das Aug, und, wie ein Gott, der Tag
Beginnt im Sprung die königlichen Flüge!