What do you think?
Rate this book
Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan
The most wide-ranging volume of the work of Europe's leading postwar poet, including previously unpublished writings.
Paul Celan was born in 1920 in the East European province of Bukovina. Soon after his parents, German-speaking Jews, had perished at the hands of the Nazis, Celan wrote "Todesfuge" ("Deathfugue"), the most compelling poem to emerge from the Holocaust. Self-exiled in Paris, for twenty-five years Celan continued writing in his German mother tongue, although it had "passed through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech." His writing purges and remakes that language, often achieving a hope-struck radiance never before seen in modern poetry. But in 1970, his psychic wounds unhealed, Celan drowned himself in the Seine. This landmark volume includes youthful lyrics, unpublished poems, and prose. All poems appear in the original and in translation on facing pages. John Felstiner's translations stem from a twenty-year immersion in Celan's life and work. John Bayley wrote in the New York Review of Books, "Felstiner translates ... brilliantly."
Paul Celan was born in 1920 in the East European province of Bukovina. Soon after his parents, German-speaking Jews, had perished at the hands of the Nazis, Celan wrote "Todesfuge" ("Deathfugue"), the most compelling poem to emerge from the Holocaust. Self-exiled in Paris, for twenty-five years Celan continued writing in his German mother tongue, although it had "passed through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech." His writing purges and remakes that language, often achieving a hope-struck radiance never before seen in modern poetry. But in 1970, his psychic wounds unhealed, Celan drowned himself in the Seine. This landmark volume includes youthful lyrics, unpublished poems, and prose. All poems appear in the original and in translation on facing pages. John Felstiner's translations stem from a twenty-year immersion in Celan's life and work. John Bayley wrote in the New York Review of Books, "Felstiner translates ... brilliantly."
466 pages, Paperback
Published December 17, 2001
27 people are currently reading
1098 people want to read
About the author
Paul Celan
223 books494 followersPoet, translator, essayist, and lecturer, influenced by French Surrealism and Symbolism. Celan was born in Cernăuţi, at the time Romania, now Ukraine, he lived in France, and wrote in German. His parents were killed in the Holocaust; the author himself escaped death by working in a Nazi labor camp. "Death is a Master from Germany", Celan's most quoted words, translated into English in different ways, are from the poem 'Todesfuge' (Death Fugue). Celan's body was found in the Seine river in late April 1970, he had committed suicide.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
August 10, 2010
I understand that, as a general rule, assessment of a work's quality should not be confused with moral judgements about the author's character. Monsters can write like angels, and vice versa. It's immaterial whether or not T.S. Eliot was beastly to his wife - it does nothing to alter the uncanny power of his poetry, the way whole chunks of it worm their way into your brain to the point you find yourself muttering lines under your breath, without even knowing precisely what they mean.
I also understand that human memory is so fallible that the only rational posture to adopt regarding the veracity of any given memoir/autobiography is one of extreme skepticism. Even if a writer has the very best intentions of presenting an unvarnished, spin-free version of past events, the resulting account will nonetheless be subjective, incomplete, and subject to error. It's just the way memory works - even the most meticulous author will, consciously or unconsciously, omit certain details and embellish or invent others, as he shapes the narrative to be consistent with the story in his head. Viewed this way, all professions of "truth" or "accuracy" are suspect where memoirs and (auto)biographical writing is concerned. Indignation about the perceived liberties with truth taken by someone like James Frey seems both naive and misplaced.
In practice, of course, things can be more complicated. At an emotional level, we don't want the author whose work we really admire and enjoy to be a total a**hole (what would that say about us)? As far as memoirs go, suppose I stumble across one of those rare books where I feel a visceral connection, as if the author had been writing just for me. If serious questions then arise about the author's honesty, that he or she has misrepresented his own experience to "heighten the reality" (or some comparable weasel phrase), then I am likely to feel manipulated and disappointed. In fact, the more I was moved by the account that I believed to be "truthful", the greater my disappointment is likely to be.
One of the most disturbing books I've read in connection with the Holocaust is Jerzy Kosinski's "The Painted Bird". First published in 1965, it tells the story of a young boy (possibly Jewish, possibly Gypsy) who is separated from his parents and wanders about small towns scattered around Eastern Europe (presumably Poland) during World War II. With few exceptions, the country people he has to deal with are portrayed as extraordinarily cruel, engaging in almost any kind of sexual or social deviance you care to name. The cruelty, viciousness and amorality of the villagers manifest themselves in episodes of incest, bestiality and rape. When the book was published, to great critical acclaim, the presumption was that Kosinksi's account was based on his own experiences during the war, which belief he did nothing to dispel.
When "The Painted Bird" was finally published in Poland (it was banned there for over a decade), the Polish couple who rescued Kosiński (then Josef Lewinkopf) during the war, even though in German occupied Poland any kind of help to a person of Jewish faith or origin was punishable by death often for the whole family, became highly indignant about how they were depicted. They recognized the names of Jewish children sheltered by them (who also survived the war), presented in the novel as victims of abuse by characters based on them. They informed the press about the fact that Kosiński "had lived through the years of Nazi occupation not only in safety, but in comfort" under their protection. Jerzy was baptized and received Holy Communion; he served as an altar boy. Summing up the ensuing reception of the book in Poland, Phillip Routh wrote: "The Poles branded Jerzy Kosiński a Holocaust profiteer because the novel, which drew comparison with The Diary of Anne Frank, was immediately granted the status of a chronicle of the Holocaust," while – at the same time – exciting a form of lust reminiscent of the extreme part of modern day Holocaust pornography."
I agree with this last assessment. Whatever you might think about the trustworthiness of memoirs in general, the deliberate faking of a "holocaust memoir" seems particularly shameful. When there are still people who would deny that the systematic killing of European Jews was carried out during WWII, it is all the more important to get the record straight. This means bearing witness not only to the atrocities that were committed, but also acknowledging the many acts of courage and refusals to bow to tyranny. That Kosinski not only failed to acknowledge the decency of the family that saved him, instead presenting a slanderous and inaccurate portrayal that reflected nothing of his actual experience, is despicable.
It could be argued that what happened in Europe during the Holocaust was essentially too horrific to be amenable to treatment in a "standard" memoir or "novel". I think there is some validity to this argument (though I think it in no way exonerates Kosinski, who cynically exploited the sympathy engendered by "The painted Bird" as far as he could). This brings me ... finally ... to Paul Celan, and the two books which are the direct subject of this review. Celan, born to a Jewish family in 1920, survived the war to become one of the post-war era's major German-language poets. Although Celan survived, his family were killed in Eastern European death camps; after the war he experienced considerable survivor guilt, and eventually committed suicide in 1970.
Celan's poetry is powerful and difficult. He has a penchant for neologisms that would give even a fluent German speaker pause. Fortunately, there are two translations that make his work accessible to English speakers: Michael Hamburger's "Poems of Paul Celan", and the more recent "Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan", translated by John Felstiner. Both are well worth your time. Neither translation is uniformly better, though if I had to pick a winner, I'd give the nod to Felstiner. Inspection of both translations of Celan's best-known poem, "Todesfuge" (Death Fugue) should make it clear why.
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts
wir trinken und trinken
wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er schreibt es und tritt vor das Haus und es blitzen die Sterne
er pfeift seine Rüden herbei er pfeift seine Juden hervor
läßt schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
er befiehlt uns spielt auf nun zum Tanz.
Felstiner:
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air where you won't lie too cramped
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland
your golden hair Margareta
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling
he whistles his hounds to stay close he whistles his Jews into rows
has them shovel a grave in the ground
he commands us play up for the dance.
Hamburger:
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack out
he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave
he commands us strike up for the dance.
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau
er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er hetzt seine Rüden auf uns er schenkt uns ein Grab in der Luft
er spielt mit den Schlangen und träumet der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith
Felstiner:
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland
we drink you at evening and morning we drink and we drink
this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue
he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margarete
he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air
he plays with his vipers and daydreams
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith.
Hamburger:
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon Death is a master from Germany
we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you
Death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue
he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air
he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany
your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith.
Felstiner's choices seem both closer to the original text (compare the two lines: "he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true", 'he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true'; only the first matches the driving rhythm which is such an essential part of the power of the original) and more daring, as for instance his decision to add more German words with each repetition of the line "der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland", until the German has taken over completely in the end. This seems like an inspired choice to me - the result is a much more powerful rendering of the sense of the poem.
But this is just one poem, and Hamburger acquits himself well elsewhere. Both books are well worth reading.
A web search on "Todesfuge" turns up links to the full text of the poem, with several other translations besides those considered here. One critic has called it 'one of the most important poems of the century', an assessment I completely agree with.
December 16, 2022
Spiteful like golden speech this night begins.
We eat the apples of the mute.
We do a thing that's gladly left to one's star;
in our lindens' autumn we stand, a flag's pensive red,
ardent guests from the South.
We swear by Christ the New to wed dust to dust,
birds to a wandering shoe,
our hearts to a stair in the water.
We swear to the world the sacred oaths of the sand,
we swear them gladly,
we swear them aloud from the rooftops of dreamless sleep
and flourish the white hair of time . . .
July 10, 2010
Paul Celan stands among the most powerful poets. His poems are distilled and piercing, usually compact yet heavy constructions of well chosen words. Most poetry readers know his story. Born in eastern Europe to Jewish, German-speaking parents, he lost his parents to Nazi criminals, as well as any sense of “home,” I would assume. It’s strangely just that the greatest poet of the holocaust is a native German speaker. S/he just as well could have been Polish or Dutch or Italian or Hungarian. But here we have the victim speaking in the tongue of the perpetrator, the two are united in language. How better to penetrate and reflect?
Celan is most famous for his poem "Todesfuge," which is a masterpiece (“Black milk of daybreak..."). I think John Felstiner, the translator of this volume, does an excellent job of rendering it in English. Before writing this short review, I compared his with some other translations and he scores high. The translation by Jerome Rothenburg on www.poets.org, for example, is too stylized. Where Celan writes “wir trinken sie abends,” Rothenburg writes “we drink you at dusktime.” First, “abends” is simply evening and not “dusktime,” and the “sie” with a small ‘s’ is “it,” not “you.” Later in the poem, Celan does say “wir trinken dich,” or we drink you, but this does not and should not happen at the start of the poem. I don't mind translators taking liberties for the sake of idiom and making the poem comfortable in its new language, but I do take issue with imposing unnatural 'flourish.'
Because Celan uses a lot of German compound words in his poetry, translators often import them as single words into English, where they can look uncomfortable. I think compound words are one of the charms of Celan’s poetry, and that charm can get lost whether the word is preserved as one or split as is more natural in English. Sometimes it works. Fadensonnen is fine as Threadsuns; Atemwende is fine as Breathturn. We do build such words in poetry in English, too, but they stand out more in English than they do in German. I think Felstiner handles them well, though not always.
For me Celan is a poet who has really known despair, not the personal despair of the depressed insurance salesman cured by Xanax but the despair induced by having witnessed and experienced the depravity and inhumanity of mankind. He is shocked at once to silence and to speech. His is the terrible wound that won’t close, that should not close because we need to know it. These are the things you will find in Celan poems: bread, almonds, roses, wine, ash, soil, snow, stones, breath, eyes. He is not a fancy poet, and he is economical with his symbols to great effect.
**
Count up the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you waking,
count me in too:
I sought your eye when you looked out and no one saw you,
I spun the secret thread
where the dew you mused on
slid down to pitchers
tended by a word that reached no one’s heart.
There you first fully entered the name that is yours.
you stepped toward yourself on steady feet,
the hammers swung free in the belfry of your silence,
things overheard thrust through to you,
what’s dead put its arm around you too,
and the three of you walked through the evening.
Render me bitter.
Number me among the almonds.
**
I would definitely recommend this volume, which offers a good selection of Celan in clean translations. It is not complete. The book
Mohn und Gedächtnis alone, Poppy and Memory in English, for example, has nearly sixty poems. There are only 15 poems from that book in this volume. I always have to remind myself that I speak German fluently and can read the original but I do like to have my native English, too.
Celan is most famous for his poem "Todesfuge," which is a masterpiece (“Black milk of daybreak..."). I think John Felstiner, the translator of this volume, does an excellent job of rendering it in English. Before writing this short review, I compared his with some other translations and he scores high. The translation by Jerome Rothenburg on www.poets.org, for example, is too stylized. Where Celan writes “wir trinken sie abends,” Rothenburg writes “we drink you at dusktime.” First, “abends” is simply evening and not “dusktime,” and the “sie” with a small ‘s’ is “it,” not “you.” Later in the poem, Celan does say “wir trinken dich,” or we drink you, but this does not and should not happen at the start of the poem. I don't mind translators taking liberties for the sake of idiom and making the poem comfortable in its new language, but I do take issue with imposing unnatural 'flourish.'
Because Celan uses a lot of German compound words in his poetry, translators often import them as single words into English, where they can look uncomfortable. I think compound words are one of the charms of Celan’s poetry, and that charm can get lost whether the word is preserved as one or split as is more natural in English. Sometimes it works. Fadensonnen is fine as Threadsuns; Atemwende is fine as Breathturn. We do build such words in poetry in English, too, but they stand out more in English than they do in German. I think Felstiner handles them well, though not always.
For me Celan is a poet who has really known despair, not the personal despair of the depressed insurance salesman cured by Xanax but the despair induced by having witnessed and experienced the depravity and inhumanity of mankind. He is shocked at once to silence and to speech. His is the terrible wound that won’t close, that should not close because we need to know it. These are the things you will find in Celan poems: bread, almonds, roses, wine, ash, soil, snow, stones, breath, eyes. He is not a fancy poet, and he is economical with his symbols to great effect.
**
Count up the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you waking,
count me in too:
I sought your eye when you looked out and no one saw you,
I spun the secret thread
where the dew you mused on
slid down to pitchers
tended by a word that reached no one’s heart.
There you first fully entered the name that is yours.
you stepped toward yourself on steady feet,
the hammers swung free in the belfry of your silence,
things overheard thrust through to you,
what’s dead put its arm around you too,
and the three of you walked through the evening.
Render me bitter.
Number me among the almonds.
**
I would definitely recommend this volume, which offers a good selection of Celan in clean translations. It is not complete. The book
Mohn und Gedächtnis alone, Poppy and Memory in English, for example, has nearly sixty poems. There are only 15 poems from that book in this volume. I always have to remind myself that I speak German fluently and can read the original but I do like to have my native English, too.
January 27, 2019
A strange lostness was
palpably present, almost
you would
have lived.
Sometime before the Industrial Age I stumbled upon an anthology at the university library. It collected a sample of the literature of the Holocaust and I don't recall much of it except for Celan's Death Fugue. This blackened milk rose again a few months back as I finished the final volume of Karl Ove's fictive revelation.
Celan then became a coveted author.
I made an attempt to acquire a used copy online but alas it was lost to the perils of our convenience. Last week in Nashville I saw two tomes and nearly fainted. I grabbed them. I have now read both and subsequently listened to hours of discussions on YouTube. I also bought the biography of Celan and I look forward to such as well as parsing Heidegger's and Derrida's approaches. These poems are remarkable, the prose less so. I feel rather disappointed actually by the latter. The verse demands re-readings and annotations. It was wonderful to again read aloud the German.
palpably present, almost
you would
have lived.
Sometime before the Industrial Age I stumbled upon an anthology at the university library. It collected a sample of the literature of the Holocaust and I don't recall much of it except for Celan's Death Fugue. This blackened milk rose again a few months back as I finished the final volume of Karl Ove's fictive revelation.
Celan then became a coveted author.
I made an attempt to acquire a used copy online but alas it was lost to the perils of our convenience. Last week in Nashville I saw two tomes and nearly fainted. I grabbed them. I have now read both and subsequently listened to hours of discussions on YouTube. I also bought the biography of Celan and I look forward to such as well as parsing Heidegger's and Derrida's approaches. These poems are remarkable, the prose less so. I feel rather disappointed actually by the latter. The verse demands re-readings and annotations. It was wonderful to again read aloud the German.
Read
September 1, 2025Nie oceniam gwiazdkami książek przeczytanych na potrzeby pracy naukowej.
March 27, 2021
I wish every poetry collection were published like this one. Beyond the poetry itself (which was amazing*) the book - the published pages I hold in my hands - was superior to the other poetry anthologies/collections I've read recently (maybe ever). Here's why I say this:
(1) the introduction [acknowledgements and preface] provided background to this translator's work and methods and provided insight into the poet's life and how we - the world - are gifted and prize art that, if we were to be given a choice of 'change the horrible things that happened that inspired this' or 'let it happen so we could see these resulting works' would choose (almost probably absolutely) the first option, and yet we may struggle somewhat with knowing how much we'd miss the art produced. Anyway, I appreciated the translator's introduction to the collection - not just the 'why' but also the 'how' it was brought together, looking at others' translations.
(2) the body of the book has the original German on the left page, its translation into English on the right page. I like the side-by-side presentation. I know this isn't the only book to present a translated work in this way, but I always appreciate when it's done and miss it (usually belatedly) when it is absent.
(3) including prose selections (e.g. speeches) by the poet was a nice touch. See, he didn't only speak in metaphor and rhyme!
(4) the references at the end, providing insight into how specific words or metaphors used or the events or people referenced, was brilliant. LOVED the touch, though I didn't see it was there until the end, and so had to to back and reread to see what I missed. I wish every book of poetry had such flashes of insight added.
(5) even the Indexes at the end are printed nicely, in fine print and both in German and English - it just looks useful/neat.
(6) finally - this physical copy's floppiness is satisfying (if not the most floppy, nevertheless very adequate, which is more than I can say of other collections I've read lately which have been stiff or even hard cover). Never underestimate the "feel" of a book and its influence on the reader.
*The poetry: As with all art, some of it spoke to me and some did not, and undoubtedly what I find draws me in would change upon re-readings. The poems that appear to have won awards and are Celan's most well-known were not the works I seem to like most, though I don't know how well known or obscure the other poems I like may be.
I most enjoyed: "Nocture," "The Tankards," "Count up the almonds," "I Heard it Said," "Speak You Too," "Ice, Eden," "Threadsuns," and "Whichever Stone You Lift," which I have here below, in its entirety:
Whichever stone you lift
you lay bare
those who need the protection of the stones.
naked,
now they renew their entwinement
Whichever tree you fell -
you frame
the bedstead where
souls are stayed once again,
as if this aeon too
did not tremble.
Whichever word you speak -
you owe to
destruction.
(1) the introduction [acknowledgements and preface] provided background to this translator's work and methods and provided insight into the poet's life and how we - the world - are gifted and prize art that, if we were to be given a choice of 'change the horrible things that happened that inspired this' or 'let it happen so we could see these resulting works' would choose (almost probably absolutely) the first option, and yet we may struggle somewhat with knowing how much we'd miss the art produced. Anyway, I appreciated the translator's introduction to the collection - not just the 'why' but also the 'how' it was brought together, looking at others' translations.
(2) the body of the book has the original German on the left page, its translation into English on the right page. I like the side-by-side presentation. I know this isn't the only book to present a translated work in this way, but I always appreciate when it's done and miss it (usually belatedly) when it is absent.
(3) including prose selections (e.g. speeches) by the poet was a nice touch. See, he didn't only speak in metaphor and rhyme!
(4) the references at the end, providing insight into how specific words or metaphors used or the events or people referenced, was brilliant. LOVED the touch, though I didn't see it was there until the end, and so had to to back and reread to see what I missed. I wish every book of poetry had such flashes of insight added.
(5) even the Indexes at the end are printed nicely, in fine print and both in German and English - it just looks useful/neat.
(6) finally - this physical copy's floppiness is satisfying (if not the most floppy, nevertheless very adequate, which is more than I can say of other collections I've read lately which have been stiff or even hard cover). Never underestimate the "feel" of a book and its influence on the reader.
*The poetry: As with all art, some of it spoke to me and some did not, and undoubtedly what I find draws me in would change upon re-readings. The poems that appear to have won awards and are Celan's most well-known were not the works I seem to like most, though I don't know how well known or obscure the other poems I like may be.
I most enjoyed: "Nocture," "The Tankards," "Count up the almonds," "I Heard it Said," "Speak You Too," "Ice, Eden," "Threadsuns," and "Whichever Stone You Lift," which I have here below, in its entirety:
Whichever stone you lift
you lay bare
those who need the protection of the stones.
naked,
now they renew their entwinement
Whichever tree you fell -
you frame
the bedstead where
souls are stayed once again,
as if this aeon too
did not tremble.
Whichever word you speak -
you owe to
destruction.
July 30, 2016
I've been spoilt by the Hamburger translations of Celan's works. Though this edition is decent, it is evident that much has been lost in translation. This is evidenced upon reading the side-by-side German and English versions of poems in this volume. Though I speak little German, I know what Celan's poetry feels like in my stomach and eyes and heart and this was, sadly, not it.
January 17, 2022
From Early Poems...
From Poppy and Memory...
From From Threshold to Threshold...
From Speech-Grille...
From The No-One's-Rose...
From Breathturn...
From Threadsuns...
From Light-Compulsion...
From Snow-Part...
From Homestead of Time...
From Uncollected Poems...
The urns of stillness are empty.
In branches
the swelter of speechless songs
chokes black.
Blunt hourposts
grope toward a strange time.
A wingbeat whirls.
For the owls in the heart
death dawns.
Treason falls into your eyes -
My shadow strives with your scream -
The east smokes after this night . . .
Only dying
sparkles.- Darkness, pg. 5
From Poppy and Memory...
Mould-green is the house of oblivion.
At each of its blowing gates your beheaded minstrel goes blue.
For you he beats on a drum of moss and bitter pubic hair;
with an ulcerous tow he traces your brow in the sand.
Longer than it was he draws it, and the red of your lip.
You fill up the urns here and nourish your heart.- The Sand from the Urns, pg. 23
* * *
Do not seek your mouth on my lips,
nor a stranger at the gate,
nor a tear in the eye.
Seven nights higher Red wanders to Red,
seven hearts deeper a hand raps at the gate,
seven roses later the wellspring rushes.- Crystal, pg. 39
* * *
You lofty poplars - human of this earth!
You blackened ponds of happiness - you mirror them toward death!
I saw you, sister, standing in this brilliance.- Landscape, pg. 47
From From Threshold to Threshold...
Both doors of the world
stand open:
opened by you
in the twilight.
We hear them banging and banging
and bear it uncertainly,
and bear this Green into your Ever.- Epitaph for François, pg. 57
* * *
Nourished by figs be the heart
wherein an hour thinks back
on the deadman's almond eye.
Nourished by figs.
Steep, in the seawind's breath,
the shipwrecked
forehead,
the cliff-sister.
And full-blown by your white hair
the fleece
of the grazing cloud.- Remembrance, pg. 67
* * *
Lay in his grave for the dead man the words
he spoke so as to live.
Cushion his head among them,
let him feel
the tongues of longing,
the tongs.
Lay on the lids of the dead man the word
he denied to that one
who said Thou to him,
the word
his heart's blood skipped past on
when a hand as bare as his own
strung up into trees of the future
the one who said Thou to him.
Lay this word on his lids:
perhaps
in his still-blue eye a second,
stranger blue will enter,
and the one who said Thou to him
will dream with him: We.- Paul Éluard, pg. 73
From Speech-Grille...
There will be one more eye,
a strange one, next to
ours: mute
under a stony lid.
Come drill your shaft!
There will be an eyelash
turned inward in the rock
and steeled by what's unwept,
the thinnest of spindles.
It does its work before you
a if, thanks to stone, there still were brothers.- Confidence, pg. 95
* * *
Eyes round between the bars.
Flittering lid
paddles upward,
breaks a glance free.
Iris, the swimmer, dreamless and drab:
heaven, heartgray, must be near.
Aslant, in the iron socket,
a smoldering chip.
By sense of light
you hit on the soul.
(Were I like you. Were you like me.
Did we not stand
under one trade wind?
We are strangers.)
The flagstones. On them,
close by each other, both
heartgray puddles:
two
mouthfuls of silence.- Speech-Grille, pg. 107
* * *
Hours, Maycolour, cool.
What's no more to be named, hot,
hearable in the mouth.
Nobody's voice, again.
Aching depths of an eyeball:
the lid
does not black the way, the lash
does not count what enters.
The tear, half of it,
a sharper lens, nimble,
brings you images.- An Eye, Open, pg. 117
From The No-One's-Rose...
The word about going to-the-depths
that we once read.
The years, the words since then.
We're still just that.
You know, there's no end of space,
you know, you don't need to fly,
you know, what inscribed itself in your eye
deepens our depth.- The word about going-to-the-depths, pg. 137
* * *
No one kneads us again out of earth and clay,
no one incants our dust.
No one.
Blessed are thou, No One.
In thy sight would
we bloom.
In thy
spite.
A Nothing
we were, are now, and ever
shall be, blooming:
the Nothing-, the
No-One's-Rose.
With
our pistil soul-bright,
our stamen heaven-waste,
our corona red
from the purpleword we sang
over, O over
the thorn.- Psalm, pg. 157
* * *
Envoi
Yet,
yet it shoots up, that tree. It,
it too
stand against
the Plague.- Envoi, pg. 163
From Breathturn...
You may safely
regale me with snow:
whenever shoulder to shoulder
I strode through summer with the mulberry,
its youngest leaf
shrieked.- You May, pg. 223
* * *
Temple-pincers
eyed by your cheekbone.
Their silver gleam
where they bit in:
you and the rest of your sleep -
soon
it's your birthday.- Temple-Pincers, pg. 235
* * *
A rumbling: it is
Truth itself
walked among
men,
amidst the
metaphor squall- A Rumbling, pg. 277
From Threadsuns...
Sleepscraps, wedges,
driven into Nowhere:
we stay steadfast,
the rounded star
we steer past
concurs with us.- Sleepscraps, pg. 291
* * *
Profuse announcement
in a grave, where
we with our
gas flags are flapping,
here we stand
in the odour
of sanctity, yeah.
Burnt
fumes of Beyond
leak thick from our pores,
in every other
tooth-
cavity awakes
an undespoiled hymn.
The two bits twilight you tossed in to us,
come, gulp it down too.- Profuse Announcement, pg. 301
* * *
Because you found the trouble-shard
in a wilderness place,
the shadow centuries relax beside you
and hear you think:
Perhaps it's true
that peace conjured two peoples here
out of clay vessels- Because You Found the Trouble-Shard, pg. 305
From Light-Compulsion...
We lay
deep in the maquis as you
crawled up at last.
Yet we could not
darken over to you:
the law was
Light-compulsion.- We Lay, pg. 313
* * *
Knock the
light-wedges away:
the floating word
is dusk's.- Knock, pg. 317
* * *
Do not work ahead,
do not send abroad,
stand
in here:
deep-grounded by Nothingness,
free of all
player,
fine-fitted to
the Pre-Script,
unoutstrippable,
you I take up
in place of all
rest.- Do Not Work Ahead, pg. 325
From Snow-Part...
The broaches year
with its rotting crust of
madnessbread.
Drink
from my mouth.- The Broaches Year, pg. 331
* * *
A leaf, treeless
for Bertolt Brecht:
What kind of times are these,
when a conversation
is well night a crime
because it includes
so much that is said?- A Leaf, pg. 343
From Homestead of Time...
Wanderbush, you snare
one of the speeches,
the forsworn aster
thrusts up close,
if the one who
smashed the canticles
spoke now to his rod,
his and everyone's
blinding
would be gone.- Wanderbush, pg. 352
* * *
There will be something, later,
that brims full with you
and lifts up
toward a mouth
Out of a shardstrewn
craze
I stand up
and look upon my hand,
how it draws the one
and only
circle- There Will, pg. 369
* * *
Clearlit the seeds
I swam unto
in you,
rowed free
the names - they
ply the straits,
a blessing, ahead,
clenches
to a weather-skinned
fist.- Clearlit, pg. 373
From Uncollected Poems...
Don't write yourself
in between worlds,
rise up against
multiple meanings,
trust the trail of tears
and learn to live.- Don't Write Yourself, pg. 389
April 7, 2011
Celan is a great wordsmith, though I think my rating of this collection is lower for two reasons. First, certain nuances of the prose are lost in the translation from German to English, and second I think part of the popularity of this work stems from the circumstances from which he came. Celan's poetry grows out of his experiences as a holocaust survivor, which to me seems to add some sort of false weight to it. Not that holocaust writing shouldn't be treasured for the history it preserves, but the literary merit of a piece should not be influenced by the topic that matter covers.
August 26, 2007
I don't really know from German, but Felstiner renders Celan's notoriously intricate verse into poems so direct and luminous that you might mistake them for having been written in English. I also appreciate the spare notes; he trusts you and the poems to find each other on your own, and doesn't try to footnote away the mystery. I'm grateful for a book that makes Celan's beauty, sadness and experiment so visible in another language. A labor of light.
June 2, 2016
Огромен, пламтящ свод
с него
навън и нататък
дълбаещи се черни звезди рой:
в превърнатото в кварц чело на овен
жигосвам този образ, между
рогата, в които,
в песента на вихрушките
сърцевината на потеклото
сърце - море приижда.
Срещу
какво
не се затичва?
Светът си отиде, аз трябва да те нося.
(1967)
с него
навън и нататък
дълбаещи се черни звезди рой:
в превърнатото в кварц чело на овен
жигосвам този образ, между
рогата, в които,
в песента на вихрушките
сърцевината на потеклото
сърце - море приижда.
Срещу
какво
не се затичва?
Светът си отиде, аз трябва да те нося.
(1967)
February 3, 2008
If I had a poetry bible--this would be it.
July 8, 2009
Not an easy read. Heart-breaking, but beautiful.
"Black milk of morning we drink you at daybreak..."
"Black milk of morning we drink you at daybreak..."
April 24, 2009
reading more Celan (--wonderful stuff!) this time translated by Lia's uncle (--Cool!)
July 27, 2011
For the introduction written by M.H, I wonder whether or not he involved in the plagarism?? But I respect his poems and all his experiences including suicide.
April 2, 2025
So, as with anyone who wrote as many books as Paul Celan did, some will hit harder than others. The short version of this review is that Paul Celan could catch tragedy lightening in a bottle. I think that Deathfugue is one of the most memorable poems I have ever read. I wrote down several other passages, from other poems, in my collection of “memorable quotes from books.”
The translations are vivid and filled with interesting compound words, a product of German’s syntax, I suspect. It’s fun to have the facing print, so I can notice recurring words across poems. I definitely think this book is a master class in poetry translation (one of the reasons I picked it up).
There is pretty sizable shift from the earlier, often explicitly Holocaust-themed or focused poems to the later, shorter and more imagistic style. I suspect that I miss out on some of the good juice by not catching all the things he casually references (my knowledge of Jewish history and culture is a blanket so full of holes that’s more hole than cloth). Reading a person’s work across time is a particular kind of rewarding, though, and (even for a novice like me) there is great stuff from all stages of Celan’s writing. Just very, very sad: “You grind in the mills of death the white meal of the Promise, / you set it before our brothers and sisters” (Late and Deep).
Just very sad. And I know that there is so much in Celan’s writing beyond what is specifically connected to the Holocaust, but it is hard to not be looking for that when his life was so marked by it.
What a heartbreaking way to describe mourning and memory of a dead loved one:
Mute autumn smells. The
aster, unbent, passed
through your memory
between homeland and chasm.
A strange lostness was
bodily present, you came
near to
living. (Mute Autumn Smells)
Do yourself a favor and read Paul Celan.
The translations are vivid and filled with interesting compound words, a product of German’s syntax, I suspect. It’s fun to have the facing print, so I can notice recurring words across poems. I definitely think this book is a master class in poetry translation (one of the reasons I picked it up).
There is pretty sizable shift from the earlier, often explicitly Holocaust-themed or focused poems to the later, shorter and more imagistic style. I suspect that I miss out on some of the good juice by not catching all the things he casually references (my knowledge of Jewish history and culture is a blanket so full of holes that’s more hole than cloth). Reading a person’s work across time is a particular kind of rewarding, though, and (even for a novice like me) there is great stuff from all stages of Celan’s writing. Just very, very sad: “You grind in the mills of death the white meal of the Promise, / you set it before our brothers and sisters” (Late and Deep).
Just very sad. And I know that there is so much in Celan’s writing beyond what is specifically connected to the Holocaust, but it is hard to not be looking for that when his life was so marked by it.
What a heartbreaking way to describe mourning and memory of a dead loved one:
Mute autumn smells. The
aster, unbent, passed
through your memory
between homeland and chasm.
A strange lostness was
bodily present, you came
near to
living. (Mute Autumn Smells)
Do yourself a favor and read Paul Celan.
May 1, 2024
Paul Celan was a Romanian-French poet and Holocaust survivor. Nothing I have written-and-erased about him or his work captures how it made me feel. To understand, one must simply read and interact with it. For now - many of the poems in this book met me in a place of humility and awe.
Favorite quotes:
“Sharper than ever the air remaining: you must breathe,
breathe and be you.”
“you know, what inscribed itself in your eye
deepens our depth.”
“we shovel a grave in the air where you won’t lie too cramped”
Favorite quotes:
“Sharper than ever the air remaining: you must breathe,
breathe and be you.”
“you know, what inscribed itself in your eye
deepens our depth.”
“we shovel a grave in the air where you won’t lie too cramped”
October 31, 2020
"Will days heal softly, will they cut too sharp?"
Many of Celan's poems are weighted with grief. He survived the Nazis, but his parents did not, and mourning his mother is a constant theme.
And yet these poems reveal beauty. A command of language. Weaving words to reveal and create possibilities.
And in one poem I found my slogan for 2020 (I have adapted the translation a little):
"This cracked year
with its rotting crust of
madnessbread."
Many of Celan's poems are weighted with grief. He survived the Nazis, but his parents did not, and mourning his mother is a constant theme.
And yet these poems reveal beauty. A command of language. Weaving words to reveal and create possibilities.
And in one poem I found my slogan for 2020 (I have adapted the translation a little):
"This cracked year
with its rotting crust of
madnessbread."
August 25, 2023
The introduction was very helpful for context. I've not studied poetry extensively (I'm a fiction writer, primarily), and I did find many poems inscrutable, but because of the close historical connections to my family history and Jewish identity, and the power of so many of the poems, I also finished the book thinking I might just have to discuss it with my therapist!
June 6, 2024
I still favor the Hamburger translations--through which I fell in love with Celan first.
March 10, 2008
Paul Celan stands as one of the most influential and visible poets of the second half of the 20th-century. The work he produced from World War II to his suicide by drowning in 1970 has been lauded by subsequent poets, taught in German history courses, and set to music by Berio, Birtwistle, and Rihm. The central theme of most of Celan's poetry is the slaughter of European Jewry in the Holocaust, as the poet was born in a German-speaking Jewish enclave in Bucovina and there lost his parents and his home, scars which even a successful new life in Paris could never erase. This volume of selected poems with English translations by John Felstiner (author of the biography PAUL CELAN: Poet, Survivor, Jew) is a fine introduction to his work.
Celan's poem "Todesfuge" (Death Fugue) is one of his earliest mature pieces and the most common introduction to his poetry. It's opening lines "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening / we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink / we shovel a grave in the air where you won't lie too cramped" are a powerful depiction of the death camps and fully repudiate Adorno's claim that poetry after Auschwitz is impossible.
Some critics have claimed that "Todesfuge" was Celan's only great poem and had it not been for that, then we would have never heard of him. That poem was certainly his break into the literary world, but other material in this volume is just as fine. "Einfuehrung" (Stretto) is something of a rewriting of "Todesfuge" in considerably more desperate language and my favourite of Celan's poems. Here the motifs of the first poem are shattered into pieces ("Grass, written asunder. The stones, white / with the grassblades' ... Ashes. / Ashes. ashes. / Night. / Night-and-night.") which in turn are dissolved into their component atoms (Hurricanes, / Hurricanes, from all, / particle flurry...").
In "Tenebrae" Celan reverses the relationship of God and his people in Judaism and explicitly evokes the violence of the camps: "Near are we, Lord, / near and graspable. // Grasped already, Lord, / clawed into each other, as if / each of our bodies were your body, Lord." One of Celan's main concerns was how speech might remain meaningful when so much of life had become meaningless after the horrors of the war years. In "With a Changing Key" he writes: "With a changing key / you unlock the house where / the snow of what's silenced drifts ... Changing your key changes the word / that may drift with the flakes. / Just like that wind that rebuffs you, / packed round your word is the snow."
While much of Celan's work is haunting, I cannot make much of his last works. With the last collections he saw published in his lifetime ATEMWENDE (Breathturn) and FADENSONNEN (Threadsuns) his poetry became so hermitic and so obsessed with polysemy (multiple meanings) that it effectively means nothing. Take, for example, the poem "Coagula" which in its entirety reads: "Also your / wound, Rosa. // And the horns' light of your / Romanian buffaloes / in place of a star above the / sand bed, in the / outspeaking red / ashpotent / alembic."
Now, some of the linguistic games of these late poems are entertaining, but I cannot sketch them here because I'm assuming readers of this review have no German, and they indeed cannot be preserved in English. Like all translators, Felstiner has attempted to give the poems some intelligibility by basing his translations on our knowledge of Celan's life, but in doing so he collapses the possibilities inherent in the German text.
In reviewing this volume of selected poems, and consequently the poet's entire career, I'm not sure how to rate it overall and therefore have given it three stars. Celan is certainly a poet worth getting acquainted with, but I can't help feeling that he was going astray into irrelevance with the late poems that only the author himself would have understood. If you are a fan of modern European poetry, or interested in the Holocaust and its influence on literature, you might pick up Felstiner's translations if you cannot read the original German. Felstiner's translations and commentary might also appeal to those interested in Celan's Jewishness, the main concern of the translator.
I must say, however, that I rather prefer Michael Hamburger's selection POEMS OF PAUL CELAN. In its final edition, Hamburger translated slightly more poems than Felstiner. Hamburger was also able to make use of recent scholarship in translating "Coagula" which Felstiner didn't have access to. Finally, Hamburger's introduction and essay on translating Celan show the poet's linguistic brilliance.
Celan's poem "Todesfuge" (Death Fugue) is one of his earliest mature pieces and the most common introduction to his poetry. It's opening lines "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening / we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink / we shovel a grave in the air where you won't lie too cramped" are a powerful depiction of the death camps and fully repudiate Adorno's claim that poetry after Auschwitz is impossible.
Some critics have claimed that "Todesfuge" was Celan's only great poem and had it not been for that, then we would have never heard of him. That poem was certainly his break into the literary world, but other material in this volume is just as fine. "Einfuehrung" (Stretto) is something of a rewriting of "Todesfuge" in considerably more desperate language and my favourite of Celan's poems. Here the motifs of the first poem are shattered into pieces ("Grass, written asunder. The stones, white / with the grassblades' ... Ashes. / Ashes. ashes. / Night. / Night-and-night.") which in turn are dissolved into their component atoms (Hurricanes, / Hurricanes, from all, / particle flurry...").
In "Tenebrae" Celan reverses the relationship of God and his people in Judaism and explicitly evokes the violence of the camps: "Near are we, Lord, / near and graspable. // Grasped already, Lord, / clawed into each other, as if / each of our bodies were your body, Lord." One of Celan's main concerns was how speech might remain meaningful when so much of life had become meaningless after the horrors of the war years. In "With a Changing Key" he writes: "With a changing key / you unlock the house where / the snow of what's silenced drifts ... Changing your key changes the word / that may drift with the flakes. / Just like that wind that rebuffs you, / packed round your word is the snow."
While much of Celan's work is haunting, I cannot make much of his last works. With the last collections he saw published in his lifetime ATEMWENDE (Breathturn) and FADENSONNEN (Threadsuns) his poetry became so hermitic and so obsessed with polysemy (multiple meanings) that it effectively means nothing. Take, for example, the poem "Coagula" which in its entirety reads: "Also your / wound, Rosa. // And the horns' light of your / Romanian buffaloes / in place of a star above the / sand bed, in the / outspeaking red / ashpotent / alembic."
Now, some of the linguistic games of these late poems are entertaining, but I cannot sketch them here because I'm assuming readers of this review have no German, and they indeed cannot be preserved in English. Like all translators, Felstiner has attempted to give the poems some intelligibility by basing his translations on our knowledge of Celan's life, but in doing so he collapses the possibilities inherent in the German text.
In reviewing this volume of selected poems, and consequently the poet's entire career, I'm not sure how to rate it overall and therefore have given it three stars. Celan is certainly a poet worth getting acquainted with, but I can't help feeling that he was going astray into irrelevance with the late poems that only the author himself would have understood. If you are a fan of modern European poetry, or interested in the Holocaust and its influence on literature, you might pick up Felstiner's translations if you cannot read the original German. Felstiner's translations and commentary might also appeal to those interested in Celan's Jewishness, the main concern of the translator.
I must say, however, that I rather prefer Michael Hamburger's selection POEMS OF PAUL CELAN. In its final edition, Hamburger translated slightly more poems than Felstiner. Hamburger was also able to make use of recent scholarship in translating "Coagula" which Felstiner didn't have access to. Finally, Hamburger's introduction and essay on translating Celan show the poet's linguistic brilliance.
April 24, 2013
The award winning translator, John Fesstiner, makes clear Celan's difficult German poems. I review below one of Celan's best known poem: "Deathfugue," found on page 30 in this bilingual volume. The poem follows my review or introduction.
Paul Ancel or Celan (in his chosen writer's name), a Romanian born German Jew who lost his parents in the death camp, who himself was captured and spent time in the death camp, wrote a poem about the death camp, Death Fugue, in which the death march is still heard (despite the loss of rhythm in the translation from German, his mother tongue). How can the language express the dark, ineffable evil, which is never merely personal or merely embodied in person. Evil is greater than the individual persons carrying out the evil deeds, just as good is greater than any individuals who bear it. But what does it mean to speak of the smoke rising to the sky to become "a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped"! What does it mean to live on account of others' death, in the midst of ashes evaporating in the air that one helps to burn. Heaven is not the place of paradise but a graveyard! Out of the land that produced Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, Bach, Beethoven, and Goethe comes the Master/Lord/Camp Master of Death. In a single line, the whole Christian civilization, which in turn is founded on Judaism, is indicted: "this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue."
How do we respond to Auschwitz and after Auschwitz? What can one say? How can it be said? Paul Celan says it in poetry, the evil felt and lamented in poetry. The milk one drinks to live can no longer be pure and white. But what a torment it is to drink the "black milk" tainted by ashes not only once but again and again, in the rhythm of the daily forced labor, in the rhythm of the death march, in order to survive, in order only to "shovel a grave in the air," in order to strike up a tune to which one is ordered to dance in the midst of death. In these circumstances, one could (be forced to) dance only to a fugue, to a death fugue.
Deathfugue
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Marguerite
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling
he whistles his hounds to come close
he whistles his Jews into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground
he orders us strike up and play for the dance
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margeurite
your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped
He shouts jab this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play
he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue
jab your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday and morning we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margeurite
your aschenes Haar Shulamith he plays with his vipers
He shouts play death more sweetly Death is a master from Deutschland
he shouts scrape your strings darker you'll rise then in smoke to the sky
you'll have a grave then in the clouds there you won't lie too cramped
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland
we drink you at evening and morning we drink and we drink
this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue
he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margarete
he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air
he plays with his vipers and daydreams
der Tod is ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Shulamith
Paul Celan
(Translated by John Felstiner)
http://mason.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/deathfu...
Paul Ancel or Celan (in his chosen writer's name), a Romanian born German Jew who lost his parents in the death camp, who himself was captured and spent time in the death camp, wrote a poem about the death camp, Death Fugue, in which the death march is still heard (despite the loss of rhythm in the translation from German, his mother tongue). How can the language express the dark, ineffable evil, which is never merely personal or merely embodied in person. Evil is greater than the individual persons carrying out the evil deeds, just as good is greater than any individuals who bear it. But what does it mean to speak of the smoke rising to the sky to become "a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped"! What does it mean to live on account of others' death, in the midst of ashes evaporating in the air that one helps to burn. Heaven is not the place of paradise but a graveyard! Out of the land that produced Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, Bach, Beethoven, and Goethe comes the Master/Lord/Camp Master of Death. In a single line, the whole Christian civilization, which in turn is founded on Judaism, is indicted: "this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue."
How do we respond to Auschwitz and after Auschwitz? What can one say? How can it be said? Paul Celan says it in poetry, the evil felt and lamented in poetry. The milk one drinks to live can no longer be pure and white. But what a torment it is to drink the "black milk" tainted by ashes not only once but again and again, in the rhythm of the daily forced labor, in the rhythm of the death march, in order to survive, in order only to "shovel a grave in the air," in order to strike up a tune to which one is ordered to dance in the midst of death. In these circumstances, one could (be forced to) dance only to a fugue, to a death fugue.
Deathfugue
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Marguerite
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling
he whistles his hounds to come close
he whistles his Jews into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground
he orders us strike up and play for the dance
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margeurite
your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped
He shouts jab this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play
he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue
jab your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday and morning we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margeurite
your aschenes Haar Shulamith he plays with his vipers
He shouts play death more sweetly Death is a master from Deutschland
he shouts scrape your strings darker you'll rise then in smoke to the sky
you'll have a grave then in the clouds there you won't lie too cramped
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland
we drink you at evening and morning we drink and we drink
this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue
he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margarete
he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air
he plays with his vipers and daydreams
der Tod is ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Shulamith
Paul Celan
(Translated by John Felstiner)
http://mason.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/deathfu...
November 2, 2008
This volume provides an adequate selection of Celan's poetry along with his most significant prose works--such as the "Meridian" and Bremen speeches. While Hamburger's and Joris' translations are ultimately preferable, Felstiner's versions are well worth reading. At times, he veers toward language that's either too colloquial or too poetic--or both--but in other instances, his versions are taut and powerful. Just as there can be "no absolute poem," as Celan asserted in the Meridian speech, there can be no absolute translation, and Felstiner's versions--along with those of Hamburger and Joris, in particular--provide English readers with a happy variety.
October 12, 2018
Celan's poetry is not easy to read, in the background of his concentration camp experiences and eventual suicide in 1970. His poetry makes me wish if I could read the original in German because I doubt if English language could do justice to the language structure itself that he's experimenting with! His poetry is a revelation as what experiences such as the ones in a concentration camp could do to the sensitivities of a poet. Very honest, raw and sometimes brutal reading experience. I would love to read more from Celan.
December 31, 2008
Celan is a must-read poet, in my opinion. Unlike U.S. language poets, who often seem to lack a context for their experiments, Celan's tortured, opaque prosody always feels shadowed by the tragic history which he narrowly survived. Surely it's best to compare all the current translations, since Celan is a poet who forces his translators to make hard decisions, but I found this volume to be both a perceptive translation and a good representative single-volume sampling.
May 15, 2015
If searching for a descriptive, Celan himself put it best when he wrote "born of word blood" ('In Prague') - his poetry is like the assimilation of words in a system of anatomy, all terms pulled from experience and then sent colliding in the stream of consciousness like cells in his arteries. The only way his poetry will 'make sense' is if you give way to sensation, like winking in and out of the images that compose your own memories.
August 13, 2015
I'm certainly glad to have been introduced to Celan's work. There's no other 20th century poet like him. That being said, I rarely found his work moving. It was (I suppose) obscure and fragmented, and intentionally so. He's clearly a master and brilliant, and there are certainly some poems I'll keep with me, but I can't say Celan is now one of my favorite poets. Five stars in recognition of his brilliance, three in recognition of my enjoyment factor--an average of four, then.
August 20, 2019
This is a very profound, surreal, depressing, yet hopeful set of poems. It definitely made me think of the darker things in life but didn’t keep me there to wallow in it. It made me think of ways to rise above the current American fascism so it could be challenged and changed. Although written in a different time, the messages are still valid.
March 1, 2023
“Like lightning, it strikes.” - Du Haschmerrer
And we seen it done, again and again. Like money, it develops. Or something when in an envelope we see something else. All that glitters is not always gold. And we are Heengmorder, like Bauschus. And we are Hingmrider. This book is like a diamond in the rough.
And we seen it done, again and again. Like money, it develops. Or something when in an envelope we see something else. All that glitters is not always gold. And we are Heengmorder, like Bauschus. And we are Hingmrider. This book is like a diamond in the rough.
November 28, 2007
The stars are for the translation, not for the poems, which deserve five. Felstiner has a tendency to cast Celan as Saint Paul, but this volume stands as the best single collection of the work in English.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews