Thirty Poems

by Robert Walser, Christopher Middleton (Translator)

A deluxe edition of the Swiss master’s best poems. In a small, exquisite clothbound format resembling the early Swiss and German editions of Walser’s work, Thirty Poems collects famed translator Christopher Middleton’s favorite poems from the more than five hundred Walser wrote. The illustrations range from an early poem in perfect copperplate handwriting, to one from a 1927 Czech-German newspaper, to a microscript.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published May 30, 2012

About the author

Robert Walser, a German-Swiss prose writer and novelist, enjoyed high repute among a select group of authors and critics in Berlin early in his career, only to become nearly forgotten by the time he committed himself to the Waldau mental clinic in Bern in January 1929. Since his death in 1956, however, Walser has been recognized as German Switzerland’s leading author of the first half of the twentieth century, perhaps Switzerland’s single significant modernist. In his homeland he has served as an emboldening exemplar and a national classic during the unparalleled expansion of German-Swiss literature of the last two generations.

Walser’s writing is characterized by its linguistic sophistication and animation. His work exhibits several sets of tensions or contrasts: between a classic modernist devotion to art and a ceaseless questioning of the moral legitimacy and practical utility of art; between a spirited exuberance in style and texture and recurrent reflective melancholy; between the disparate claims of nature and culture; and between democratic respect for divergence in individuals and elitist reaction to the values of the mass culture and standardization of the industrial age.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a tendency to be suspicious toward poetry. Toward translated poetry? -- I am downright incredulous. And yet, if I can file that feeling or inclination away (for that's all it is, a feeling or inclination; I haven't the desire to acquire the language, German here, so as to perform a comparative reading of the original), and simply bask in the language/thought/image, as I did my best to do here, then I'm bound to find something to like or more than like. Because poetry, much more so than prose, is the domain of possibilities: rich possibilities, lissome possibilities, dense possibilities, arctic possibilities, dark-as-a-forest possibilities, possibilities for language, style, form, precision, and effect. As far as I can tell, apart from a few stanzas that seem, to the detriment of the most of the qualities listed above, and somewhat arbitrarily, to coerce a tepid rhyme scheme, the translator, Christopher Middleton -- accomplished poet and proset in his own right -- has done up Walser in a manner that accurately reflects, in 1/10-scale miniature, the levity (bordering on whimsy), good nature, and humble authority we find in the prose works. The cover of this volume depicts a pen-and-ink illustration executed by Walser's older brother, Karl, the famed artist and set designer.

Here is one I enjoyed: "This life, how old it is" [it is almost like reading a monologue by de Chirico's Hebdomeros!]

This life, how old it is. Even the golden
forests and the red lips of people.
Time was when people thought that they were young,
but others came before them, younger still,
who grew like plants. Every flower
is young because it does not think, but is,
and is nobler than the lovely noble minds
of people who just know, alas, their loveliness:
the loveliness of a dog is of a better kind,
shapelier than the kind a human shows.
Does death disgust us for the reason
that we in fact are much too fond of life?
When a plant dies, does it think of something?
Does a violet have a feeling when it fades?
By the loveliness of a fish how touched we are,
no legs, no hands, the round enormous eyes!

[jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

having previously read (and loved) walser's novels and short stories, i was looking forward to, and rather curious about, his poetry. this slim edition collects only a very small fraction of his many poems. rendered from the german (and selected) by longtime translator christopher middleton (jakob von gunten, selected stories), thirty poems presents work composed mainly in the late 1920s. middleton's brief, yet essential foreword goes into the history and nature of walser's poetry, as well as the challenges he faced, especially given walser's affinity for rhyme, in bringing his poems into english. thirty poems offers a view into another side of walser's often overlooked literary gifts. while these poems do not quite capture the charm or the unique quality inherent in his stories, they are, nonetheless, fundamental in forming a more complete picture of this enigmatic swiss writer.

The Creature

There is a rustling of animals at night,
they breathe like us.
Have you ever felt it,
this Substance with a thousand wounds
at moments when it's quiet in the mountains,
up in the cold air,
in this Nature, this Crypt?-
Do not be cross with me,
even if from a hundred mouths
it had in you disparaged me,
still I honor you!
Everybody quarrels with himself,
climbs from the summit of his discontent
slowly into the vale
on paths as small
as tongues pronouncing attitudes
which have swung around,
and everybody reverts, deserting spirit,
into a bit of happiness,
to take a distance from what they imagined.
Have you seen it, with great eyes
standing in the forest, the creature
that witnessed wars against the Huns?
Last night I did come close to her.
Now here I sit.
The locomotives race across the lands.
Across the ocean fly the ships.

[michal k-c · Rating 3 out of 5]

you realize that it is kind of a miracle that this book exists when you see what Walser's microscripts looked like. Less of a translation project than a deciphering. Anyway Walser is stronger when working in prose, though there's still a wit here and they feel undeniably like him. I'm working on becoming a Walser completionist — otherwise there probably isn't much point in tracking down this little book

[E.A.M]

I actually read sudden routes of experience by Duncan harper but it’s not on Goodreads but that book was garbage

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very day I finish the Thirty Poems by Robert Walser is the same day, an hour later actually, than when I completed the screening of Quentin Tarentino's DJANGO. Not that the book has anything to do with my viewing of the film, but in a way the forty or so fifty-gallon drums of fake blood used to kill almost everybody in the film's three hour length left me with an exhausted view of Tarentino's world as well as an emerging comfort for the relaxed spooning I did with Walser's verse.

Middleton admittedly took liberties with the rhymes and I am glad for that. He made the poems better, more palatable. I enjoyed reading these poesies on the heels of just finishing THE TANNERS yesterday. Hat is off to Middleton for doing a very good job.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars at best. The wit and artistry so apparent in the 2012 collection of prose pieces called Microscripts are mostly absent here, though half of these poems are themselves micro scripts. Little portraits or lyrics with not all that much appeal to me.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know if it was the translation or what, but I was not really feeling these poems, although I usually am crazy about Robert Walser.