Gedichte

by Georg Trakl

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Genres: Poetry, German Literature, Classics

105 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Trakl was an Austrian poet who lived a short, tragic life, dying of a cocaine overdose in 1914 at the age of twenty seven. Despite his relative youth and limited output, his poetry has gained a wide audience among readers of German, and was praised by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most influential Austrian poets of the twentieth century.

This collection of poems will seem deceptively small and simple to the German-as-a-second-language reader (like myself). It is often necessary to re-read even a few lines several times in order to grasp what is being done with the language. Fortunately, the majority of the poems are short, and Trakl re-uses vocabulary and motifs frequently, so it is possible to glean at least some of it even through the filter of imperfect comprehension. I would describe his approach as “romantic,” though I am not using that term in a precise or academic fashion. He writes about feelings and fantasies more than about things. He seems to paint pictures with words, but he’s more interested, so to speak, in the balance of color and framing than in the content. I will probably return to this book again.

[Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! I loved it. Trakl is worth reading for everyone and I, though having no other comparison, thought these translations were pretty great. I'm a Trakl convert now.

~~

Reread this quickly so I could familiarize myself with the vocabulary and mythology before reading the second volume.

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

My head responded with a fervent desire to understand further the depths of death, decay, and our witnessing as humanity.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the first novel I read from Seagull Books so I decided to give some of their poetry a try. I was not disappointed; and, in fact, this small but powerful little book captivated my attention. I had intended to read a few poems a day over the course of several weeks. But I finished the collection in a couple of sittings because once I started reading the poems I could not put the book down.

After reading this collection of Trakl poems I was not surprised to discover that he had a very brief and tragic life. His poems are filled with the language of decay, dying, sunset, twilight, birds of carrion and shadows. But I got the feeling that despite his internal struggles, Trakl desperately wanted to fight his way out of the abyss and find some meaning, some bright spot, some redemption in what was otherwise a depressing existence.

A common theme in this collection of poems is nature and the natural decay that every living thing experiences. But mixed within this decay there is also a natural, cyclical process of death and rebirth. In the opening poem a flock of ravens sense that a meal is near. They fight over their meal and once sated they fly away, almost gracefully “like a funeral cortege/Into winds tingling with ecstasy.” Dinner for ravens means rot and decay is present but it is also nourishment and continues their lifespan; it is the fuel that allows them to make that flight at the end of the poem.

One of my favorite poems in the collection “In Autumn” perfectly describes Trakl’s struggle against death and decay. Although fall is the season where everything starts to wither and die, the poet captures the beauty of this time of the year. He describes sunflowers that “blaze along the fence” and women who labour “singing in the fields.” And although he mentions death, the poem ends on a high note:


The dead houses have been opened wide
And painted beautiful with sunshine.

Scenes that capture the essence of autumn and winter abound in this collection. These are my favorite seasons in New England and may be why these poems resonated so much with me.

Trakl also captures the calm of twilight and evening, the declining of the day, in several of these poems. In the poem “Decay,” he manages to bring together decay, autumn and the evening into one short and descriptive poem. He asks us to imagine him following the birds “in their glorious flight” as they are “disappearing into autumn’s clear breadths.” And as he wanders “through the twilight-filled garden” Trakl imagines the birds taking flight and he has dreams that follow them along their paths into the sky and onto “brighter destinies.” Once again, we feel him fighting against his melancholy and wanting to take flight from it like those birds he so admires.

Finally, I have to mention the artwork that Seagull books chose to adorn the cover of this beautiful collection. The bright red is striking against the backdrop of a scene of nature which is outlined in black. The choice of a crow on the cover perfectly captures the themes of nature and decay contained within the volume.

[Huhn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich war ja doch ein wenig beruhigt, als hinten im Buch erklärt wurde, dass es auch professionellen Germanist_innen so geht wie mir: Die einzelnen Symbole, die Trakl verwendet, sind sehr bildhaft und die Gedichte fügen sich zu einer tolle Szenerie zusammen... aber einen Sinn kann ich ihnen häufig nicht entnehmen. ;D Ich würde bei den düsteren Gedichten jetzt nicht unbedingt von Lesevergnügen sprechen, aber eine gewisse Faszination übten sie schon auf mich aus, obwohl ich, je weiter es auf Trakls tragisches Lebensende zuschreitet, die Düsternis seiner Werke zunehmend schwer zu ertragen fand. Dunkle Wälder, ganz viel Blau und Silber, tiefste Verzweiflung, Tod, Verderben und überall streift diese unbekannte Mönchin umher. Fürs Rollenspiel ist Trakl definitiv eine tolle Inspirationsquelle, wenn ich mich davon verabschiede, seine Gedichte verstehen zu wollen und sie stattdessen wörtlich nehme. Unter dieser Prämisse hat Trakl zum Beispiel eine tolle Beschreibung eines Paladins geliefert:

Weißer Hohepriester der Wahrheit
Kristallne Stimme, in der Gottes eisiger Odem wohnt
Zürnender Magier
Dem unter flammendem Mantel der blaue Panzer des
Krieges klirrt

Ich denke ja gerade, dass ich echt mehr Gedichte lesen sollte. :D

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a Seagull book, so of course it is special. Beyond that it is a new, sensitive translation by James Reidel of Trakl's first book of poetry, first published in 1913. For my full review with links to related material about the translation see: http://wp.me/p4GDHM-io

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read Trakl before but after reading about him and some of his poems online I wanted to read a full collection of his poems. I really like this translation and the translator's notes were incredibly helpful.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haunting and beautiful, though all the poems are depressing in a similar vein.

[ExeDavid · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

[Hsu Jui-Ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sing a song of spiders wrinkled
with lepers yelp blue bruised skin hues
and a touch of fruit stained partly sunny
now o! - a chance of God's absence

the rot had not yet set in, the hope still faint.
He gives and gives now to his successors,
and his mud stained voice remains.

[Gila · Rating 4 out of 5]

my edition was published in 1966, but states that the content was taken directly from the 1913 edition.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such hideous, fabulous gloom.