The Poems

by Robert Walser, Daniele Pantano (Translation)

The first complete publication of Robert Walser’s poems translated into English.

Admired by the likes of Kafka, Musil, and Walter Benjamin and acclaimed “unforgettable, heart-rending” by J. M. Coetzee, Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878–1956) remains one of the most influential authors of modern literature. Walser left school at fourteen and led a wandering and precarious existence while producing poems, stories, essays, and novels. In 1933, he abandoned writing and entered a sanatorium, where he remained for the rest of his life. “I am not here to write,” Walser said, “but to be mad.”
 
This first collection of Walser’s poems in English translation allows English-speaking readers to experience the author as he saw himself at the beginning and the end of his literary career––as a poet. The book also includes notes on dates of composition, draft versions of the printed poems, and brief biographical information on characters and locations that appear in the poems and may not be known to readers. Few writers have ever experienced such a steady rise in their reputation and public profile as Walser has seen in recent years, and this collection of his poems will help readers discover a unique writer whose off-kilter sensibility and innovations in form are perfectly suited to our fragmented, distracted, bewildering era.
 

Genres: Poetry

412 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1909

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

[Roberto M · Rating 4 out of 5]

IN DISPARTE
Faccio la mia passeggiata,
essa mi porta un poco lontano
e a casa; poi, in silenzio e senza
parole, mi ritrovo in disparte.
.
.
PAURA
Ho atteso tanto a lungo voci
dolci e saluti, solo un suono.
Ora ho paura: non voci e suoni,
solo nebbie irrompono in quantità.
In segreto qualcuno cantava appostato nell’oscurità:
"Addolciscimi, o tristezza, il cammino ora difficile".

[Sebastian Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like Walser so i picked this up at a bookstore and read a poem in which he referred to himself as ‘the poetling’. God bless him and his translator.

I was all set to walk out with the book but then I balked at the price ($35). How much could a bunch of poems be worth?

I regret my decision almost every day. I just tried to go back to the store where I passed it up but the store was closed. I don’t know why I feel I have to buy the book from there, but I do. If someone brought the book to the bar across the street where I’m having a martini (Tito’s, twist) I’d buy if off them for $50.

[Luis Alv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Walser define su estilo muy bien, al menos al escribir poesía, pues retoma las tradiciones rítmicas, pero las remarca temáticamente a su manera, muy oscuro, siempre tomando en cuenta todo aquello que puede, aún cuando algunos textos no me han interesado tanto.

[Manuela Mongiardino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Le poesie di Walser ci introducono alla scoperta del suo animo.
Molto utile anche il commento del curatore e traduttore

[Andrea Fiore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pieno inverno

Fiori teneri e delicati
sono scolpiti sulle finestre,
la luna, come una grossa lacrima,
pende nel giardino di nebbia.

È un giardino, il mondo,
dove ogni delizia è spenta,
suoni e cielo si dissolvono. I fiori
delle finestre sono il senso raggelato.

Sulla distesa dei tetti bianchi,
sui campi, ugualmente bianchi,
la luna piange, e anche nelle stanze
abitate da pazzi o da saggi.