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Dreamweed: Posthumous Poems
"In these magnificent and stirring last poems, the great Yvan Goll is recording nothing less than the disintegration of the European soul, using the intellectual resources of a highly influential and cosmopolitan imagination. One of the finest and most revered poets of the twentieth century, Goll receives the tender treatment he deserves in these remarkably vivid and masterful translations."—Keith Flynn, author of The Golden Ratio and The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory
This is the first English translation of the last poems of Yvan Goll, one of the twentieth century's finest European poets.
This is the first English translation of the last poems of Yvan Goll, one of the twentieth century's finest European poets.
- GenresPoetry
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 6, 2012
A Tribute to a Great Poet
Nan Watkins is responsible for bringing this first English translation of the final poems of the brilliant 20th century poet Yvan Goll and such a gift it is. Her introduction to this collection almost stands alone as a novella/biography of this under known poet in the United States. She traces his troubled history from birth to death and shares with us all the extraordinary influences he participated in in the world of the arts in Europe in the post war days. It is extraordinary writing on the part of Nan Watkins!
But the content of this book DREAMWEED (TRAUMKRAUT) is the final poems by the gifted poet/writer Yvan Goll (1891 - 1950). Writing equally well in both German and French reflects his roots as a native of Alsace-Lorraine. Though German by birth he was also Jewish and faced the horrors of Germany's purging, having left his mark on Berlin and the Expressionists he also lived in Switzerland making his name a part of the Dadaist movement while also influence the Surrealists in Paris. There are probably no other writers as influential on art movements as Yvan Goll. His confreres included Chagall, Dali, Weill, James Joyce, Picasso, Apollinaire, Breton, and after his exile to New York his group included William Carlos Williams, Henry Miller, and Kenneth Patchen.
As Watkins states in her introduction, `In these DREAMWEED poems, death becomes Yvan Goll's familiar, and love is his salvation in a winter world of pain. The snow creates a death mask for him. Hi s body is no longer his body but a hostel for his ancestors' bones; his heart is plundered for iron; his kidneys are meat for a bloodhound; his flesh is consumed by eternal fire.' Some examples:
OLD MEN
Your carnation-white flesh
Lives off scrawny birds
And thereby catches fire
You old men, sing slower
In the shifting wind
And let the sun crumble
Between your fingers
Blue-feathered sleep
Has the teeth of death
And the voice of lime
SOUTH
The South Wind rattles in my vertebrae
A door in my chest bursts open
But of all the doors which one is it?
Tell me which it is so I can flee from myself
South brotherly South
Brush the question form my brow
Thaw this loner free
From the grieving glaciers
THE ASCENSION
Like the lark I fell head over heels
Into the domes of your eyes
Seeking in their azure my source
I sand intending to kidnap you
From the half-sleep of ancestors and the dead
Immortal, you strolled alongside
Castle ruins of the moon
And my dark harp did not reach you
Imperceptibly your head turned toward the East
I have never found the way back to my native gardens
Nan Martin places her translations opposite the original German poems, an homage to the poet's first version. What this book contains is a gathering of emotions and confessions and perceptions of an artist who graced the universe fully during his short lifetime. This is a very special book from Black Lawrence Press, a gift to English speaking audiences who have too long been deprived of Yvan Goll's genius.
Grady Harp
Nan Watkins is responsible for bringing this first English translation of the final poems of the brilliant 20th century poet Yvan Goll and such a gift it is. Her introduction to this collection almost stands alone as a novella/biography of this under known poet in the United States. She traces his troubled history from birth to death and shares with us all the extraordinary influences he participated in in the world of the arts in Europe in the post war days. It is extraordinary writing on the part of Nan Watkins!
But the content of this book DREAMWEED (TRAUMKRAUT) is the final poems by the gifted poet/writer Yvan Goll (1891 - 1950). Writing equally well in both German and French reflects his roots as a native of Alsace-Lorraine. Though German by birth he was also Jewish and faced the horrors of Germany's purging, having left his mark on Berlin and the Expressionists he also lived in Switzerland making his name a part of the Dadaist movement while also influence the Surrealists in Paris. There are probably no other writers as influential on art movements as Yvan Goll. His confreres included Chagall, Dali, Weill, James Joyce, Picasso, Apollinaire, Breton, and after his exile to New York his group included William Carlos Williams, Henry Miller, and Kenneth Patchen.
As Watkins states in her introduction, `In these DREAMWEED poems, death becomes Yvan Goll's familiar, and love is his salvation in a winter world of pain. The snow creates a death mask for him. Hi s body is no longer his body but a hostel for his ancestors' bones; his heart is plundered for iron; his kidneys are meat for a bloodhound; his flesh is consumed by eternal fire.' Some examples:
OLD MEN
Your carnation-white flesh
Lives off scrawny birds
And thereby catches fire
You old men, sing slower
In the shifting wind
And let the sun crumble
Between your fingers
Blue-feathered sleep
Has the teeth of death
And the voice of lime
SOUTH
The South Wind rattles in my vertebrae
A door in my chest bursts open
But of all the doors which one is it?
Tell me which it is so I can flee from myself
South brotherly South
Brush the question form my brow
Thaw this loner free
From the grieving glaciers
THE ASCENSION
Like the lark I fell head over heels
Into the domes of your eyes
Seeking in their azure my source
I sand intending to kidnap you
From the half-sleep of ancestors and the dead
Immortal, you strolled alongside
Castle ruins of the moon
And my dark harp did not reach you
Imperceptibly your head turned toward the East
I have never found the way back to my native gardens
Nan Martin places her translations opposite the original German poems, an homage to the poet's first version. What this book contains is a gathering of emotions and confessions and perceptions of an artist who graced the universe fully during his short lifetime. This is a very special book from Black Lawrence Press, a gift to English speaking audiences who have too long been deprived of Yvan Goll's genius.
Grady Harp
November 26, 2023
They're good translations as far as I can tell; the language is poetic (if a little intense at times), and I'm not fluent in German, but I know a little (it's somewhat intuitive), and may read more of the originals later. Seems like an interesting person.
July 9, 2013
A superlative translation.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews