GERMAN POETRY

Four post World War II German poets, the natural descendants of Rilke, Brecht and Kafka.

Gunter Eich (1907-1972) is a pastoral poet but nature is no longer trustworthy reassuring:

Unrest in field furrows and elderbush.
the incomprehensible in the heart
Perfection does not thrive,
here no one binds the unruly into noble proportions,
and the dark is as before creation undifferentiated from light.
Oder My River 

Poems in this collection come from several volumes published in the German between 1969-78. Stuart Hood writes: “Fried's poetry is remarkable because it expresses a spectrum of feeling in which there is no dividing line between the political and the personal”. Fried was a radical unattached to any party or ideology “Hear O Israel/ when we were the persecuted/ I was one of you/ How can I remain one when you become the persecutors” This volume won the Prix des Sept in 1978. ( more...)
 

Kunert was born in 1929 in Berlin, a “mischling”. He lived and wrote in East Berlin for many years until his move to Kaisborstel in the Federal Republic in 1981.His reason for the move: “I could no longer write there” The works are from eight collections of his poetry and prose. Choice's Outstanding Academic Books 1984-1985 Germanic.
Red Dust offers a beautifully edited bilingual volume, meticulously translated and illustrated with Kunert's own wry drawings. Choice
Agnes Stein has put together an impressive collection and translates with gusto. TLS
A major, world writer who drives hard truths home in simple, clear strokes, with an ironic directness and strength  Tom Clark Boulder Camera