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Hilde Domin (born 1912) began
writing in 1951 as an exile in Santo Domingo. Exile and return are recurrent
themes of her work:
The dead and I
We swim
through the new doors
of our old houses (Cologne)
Erich Fried (born 1921in
Vienna died in 1988) lived in London from 1938. He was a novelist,
translator and worked for the B.B.C’s German Service. He was a political
radical uncommitted to any party or ideology but unable not to act, unable
to forget.
The Freedom to Open the
Mouth
The freedom to open the mouth
exists even there
where others cry
These mouths are to be shut!
So much so
one need only posit a list
of everything that may come
out of the mouths supposedly shut
First screams
Second at the beginning
and finally at the end
perhaps even protests
Third teeth
and fourth blood and fifth
vomits
and sixth in many cases
liquids that were first
injected
through tubes or
through immersions of the head
One must not have a
one-sided view
because the freedom to open the mouth
is an equal right for all
and certainly for the authorities as well
to open the hard-bitten
mouth
of the prisoner
What to put in it?
Much water or much oil
or the heel of boots
or dirt and bloody rags
or urine or
sawdust or earth
so that there comes out of
it
if everything works well
the freely willed
confessions
sometimes the mouth gets
hurt
but there’s always the freedom to open it
which will continue to govern - in one way or another- throughout our land
Gunter Kunert (born 1929) an
East Berlin resident he was dismissed from the Communist Party in 1976 for
protesting the expulsion of Wolf Biermann, a dissident balladeer.
Because I said:
it stinks here
slop jars were emptied
on my head
as contradictory evidence (On the Way to Utopia)
Fried, Eich, Domin and
Kunert
make up the group of poets that Stein places in front of us as
demonstrations of selfhood and poetic accomplishment significant for German
culture and society after World War II. …individual bi-lingual volumes seem
even more desirable after this short, informative presentation Library
Journal
These four very good poets
are worth reading by Americans, particularly since the English versions are
exceptionally well done Choice |
