Uncollected Later Poems

by Ernst Meister, Graham Foust (Translator), Samuel Frederick (Translator)

In these skillful new translations by poet Graham Foust and scholar Samuel Frederick, whose work has previously been shortlisted for the National Translation Award in Poetry, each line is gnomic yet ample, opening spaces of reflection on mortality and infinity.  Now preserved in this portable, English-language volume, these poems from Georg Büchner Prize winner Ernst Meister’s last decade are oracular and entrancing. While the collections previously published by Wave— Of Entirety Say the Sentence, In Time’s Rift , and  Wallless Space —provide expansive access to Meister’s late work,  Uncollected Later Poems   (1968–1979)  delivers granular, endlessly rewarding profundities.   

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2023

About the author

Ernst Meister was a German poet and writer.

Meister's poetry falls within a dark abstract landscape of existentialism, with tortured themes influenced by his experiences during World War II. In his 1976 collection of poems, Im Zeitspalt (In Time's Rift), Meister frankly addresses mortality and the nothingness of our existence as both mind and body decay into death. His poetry is noted for is spare brevity and difficult syntax and has been compared to the work of Romanian poet Paul Celan (1920 - 1970), Meister's contemporary in German letters. However, despite writing 16 collections of verse, Meister was not involved with the dominant literary and cultural elite and his works were relatively unknown during his lifetime.
Contents