Poems in the Language of Death
Paul Celan’s truest homeland, paradoxically, was the German language — the language of the Nazis who imprisoned him in a forced labor camp and murdered his parents.
Source: Poems in the Language of Death
Posts Tagged ‘ Paul Celan ’
Paul Celan’s truest homeland, paradoxically, was the German language — the language of the Nazis who imprisoned him in a forced labor camp and murdered his parents.
Source: Poems in the Language of Death
SO MANY CONSTELLATIONS that are held out to us. I was, when I looked at you- when? - outside by the other worlds O these ways, galactic, O this hour, that weighed nights for us over into the burden of our names. It is, I know, not true that we lived, there moved, blindly, no more than a breath between there and not-there, and at times our eyes whirred comet-like towards things extinguished, in chasms, and where they had burnt out, splendid with teats stood Time on which already grew up and down and away all that on which already grew up is or was or will be-, I know, I know and you know, we knew, we did not know, we were there, after all, and not there and at times when only the void stood between us we got all the way to each other.
– Paul Celan
‘Soviel Gestirne’ form the ‘Die Niemandsrose’ collection in 1963, Michael Hamburger translation
The notion of encounter is a key part of the Meridian address and a major theme in Celan’s later work. It’s also quite complex so I’ll start with its use in the Meridian speech and…
Source: Paul Celan, notes on the encounter | Bebrowed’s Blog
by Paul Celan
translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov
O little root of a dream you hold me here undermined by blood, no longer visible to anyone, property of death. Curve a face that there may be speech, of earth, of ardor, of things with eyes, even here, where you read me blind, even here, where you refute me, to the letter.