Last Poems

by Paul Celan, Katharine Washburn (Translator), Margret Guillemin (Translator)

Book by Celan, Paul

Genres: Poetry

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1986

About the author

Poet, 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.

Reviews

[BJ Lillis · Rating 5 out of 5]

In German, virtually any two nouns can be combined to make a new word. Of course, this is how English (also a Germanic language!) coins words, too. We say lighthouse, not house of light. But we can’t so easily say sorrowhouse, lovehouse, waitinghouse, dreamhouse. And we say lighthouse keeper, where German omits the space and coins lighttowerkeeper (Leuchtturmwärter). This most wonderful feature of the German language is sometimes, ridiculously, called a fault—usually by reference to some bureaucratic monstrosity (Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän—Danube steamship company captain. Which, it’s worth pointing out, is exactly the same in English, just with spaces we don’t actually pronounce. Anyway, I wouldn’t want English judged on the basis of its legalese either).

Wordmaking is at the heart of these poems, beginning with the titles of the three collections excerpted here: Light-force (Lichtzwang); Time-homestead (Zeitgehöft); Snow-Part (Schneepart (“Part” in German is a part in music or theater)). Almost every one of these poems contains at least one such coinage:
needle-glances (Nadelblicken),
secret-stocking (Geheimnisstrumpf),
song-swarm (Liedschwarm),
lark-shadows (Lerchenschatten),
blossom-powers (Blütengewalten),
crown-flaws (Kronschäden),
silver-puddles (Silberpfützen),
self-kindling-flowers (Selbstzündblumen),
light-dung (Lichtdung),
whale-brow (Wahlstirn),
skull-splinters (Schläfensplittern),
tongue-uprooting (Zungenentwurzeln).

In combination, we get phrases like:
“sight-tunnels blown into speech-fog” (Sichttunnels, in / den Sprachnebel geblasen);
“drunken flight-scribes in the longing-hillside” (berauschte Flugschreiber im Sehnsuchtsgehänge);
“on meadows-edge the wing-hour picks the snow-grain” (an der Flurgrenze pickt / die Flügelstunde das Schneekorn).

In English, these poems are small beads of glass; in German, they are diamonds.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πρώτη γνωριμία με Celan και σίγουρα όχι τελευταία

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know that there is a lot that I'm missing in these poems, but there is something about the sparseness that I really like. Kind of like Webern's music, something else that I know I don't really fully get but which find really beautiful and appealing.

[Nimitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of the poems in this collection are beyond me and yet I'm compelled to read them again and again for the beauty of the words! Reading Celan is a puzzling and intriguing experience for me and because of that very exciting too!

[Carina · Rating 5 out of 5]

his best book of poems. fucking brilliant.

[Reese Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a shattered book of spells.

[Paul Kerschen]

You don't exactly read them; you just spend a little time with each one.

[Anna Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

To speak with blind alleys
about the face-to-face,
about its
expatriate
meaning--

to chew
this bread, with
writing teeth.

Between 3 and 4 stars... I find it very hard to rate poetry collections. Last Poems is a dual-language collection of three posthumous poetry volumes (Force of Light, Snow-Part and Farmstead of Time). I haven't read much of Celan's work prior to this, aside from some early poetry that I found in other collections, but what a difference. These later poems are minimalist, stark, but lyrical in their own right.

I do wish, considering how extensive and informative the introduction was, that we could have gotten an introduction to each collection of poetry to provide more context or analysis.

[Mitchell McInnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this amazing collection at the end of a long period of research and found them so compelling in their spirit and concision and eerie distillation that's both soothing and haunting in Celan's work. Memory, what remains and what transforms is likewise so much of Anselm Kiefer's work, who loves Celan's work so diligently in his own.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find poetry difficult to follow and understand. Perhaps I'm the dumb one, but for few I think I understood, I did enjoyed them. His poems are usually extremely short, and how they were written are quite intriguing. Someday I'll sit down and read it again and again until I figure out the rest of the poems in this book.

Perhaps one of you can help me sift through this book? Any takers? If so, let me know, I'll send you some of the poems in this book. I'm not poetry-inclined!

I have yet to fully appreciate his talent of writing poetry, and that's why I gave it three stars, but if I get to understand and comfortably digest his poems with considerable ease, then I just might give the book higher rating.

Gee, I guess I'm not as smart as I would liked to think!

[javor · Rating 5 out of 5]

gotta say, this ROCKED. amazing. love paul celan. i can see why adorno changed his mind viz. poetry over this. for one i did just love the german prose and appreciated the translation given how difficult any of it is to translate. but mostly, you could really just feel the stunned, speechless, post-shoah silence in his poetry. said everything in so few words, but never came off as minimalist, just, well, traumatized? stunned the reader into silence as well. damn i really love paul celan. hope he got therapy

[Tcunniff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems for the end of time.

[Mills College Library]

831.914 C3921L 1986