Shatter the Bell in My Ear: Selected Poems of Christine Lavant

by Christine Lavant, David Chorlton, Translator

Born in 1915 on July the fourth, Christine Thonhauser (Lavant) was the ninth child of a miner, Georg, and his wife, Anna, and grew up in poverty. While the poetry she was later to write contained the language of spirituality, the pain she described in it came from actual conditions which she scrofula and tuberculosis of the lungs. Being disadvantaged in health also meant she could not complete her education as intended. Unable to do hard physical work, she earned a living with knitting and weaving until she gained a reputation as a writer. Along with these health problems, she had depression to endure. Poor hearing or blindness in her poetry were not conjured metaphors for a general condition. For example, the first stanza of a poem from Spindel I'm Mond :
Shatter the bell in my ear,
slash the knot in my throat,
warm my strangled heart
and ripen my eyeballs. Writing sometimes in rhyme, sometimes in free verse, Lavant employed directness in her language. I have chosen more of the free verse poems to translate and when there is rhyme I find it preferable to hold on to tone and meaning than attempting to replicate the echoing sounds. The use of sun and moon and stars would easily become a cliché were it not for the unusual slant in the work. So strong was Lavant s connection to the commonplace elements that moon and stars become symbols illuminating her particular, troubled road to Heaven. Even glancing at first lines in several of the poems here displays this The moon s halo was never so large . . . I hear the heavy moon approaching . . . Ever closer to the Milky Way s edge . . . The moon s signal light

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2017

About the author

Christine Lavant (1915-1973), one of Austria's most famous yet obscure 20th-century poets, grew up in a small village, in a provincial Catholic milieu, in southern Austria as the ninth child of a very poor family. She suffered from eye and ear problems, was pathologically introverted, and supported herself with knitting. Her poetry is unconventional, filled with neologisms, mysterious and magical. We hear echoes of Rilke, whom she admired. Thomas Bernhard referred to her work as testimony to a "zerstörte Welt / destroyed world." She was honored with numerous literary awards, among them the Austrian State Prize for Literature in 1970, three years before her death.

Reviews

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poem after poem in this collection presses forward in its savagery. Relentless in their fervor and headed for the fire raging in the reality made in a furnace called her life. Please read my review of this great book here:
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/sh...

[Sabrina K · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 / 5 stars

I keep switching between wanting to learn Spanish and wanting to learn German...

I think I'll learn German. And go to Austria.