[New-Poetry] Re: Paul Celan

[David Graham]

Here's one from my deep vaults:

Paul Celan


"I hear that the axe has flowered,"
you said. It must have been
a furious bloom, for the chips that flew
to heal you, and then lie
soft and harmless on your collar.

It must have been a flowering
when the train rolled
from its tunnel, led by a shaft
of the purest light, as if
goodness could roll from the grave.

Your parents, riding that train,
couid not have foreseen
an axe gone crazy, glinting
black, an axe that would salt
and eat its own handle.

Was it impossible for you
in Paris, lecturing
to children of the dead?
Did I hear you sift down
like chalk dusting a classroom?

Under a desktop in the last row
your initials deepen.
But I will have to stop saying
"Imagine Celan, who killed himself."
Everyone kills himself.

--fr. *Magic Shows*.  Cleveland University Poetry Center, 1986.

========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================




On May 7, 2008, at 12:21 PM, shin02143 at aol.com wrote:

>
> Any Paul Celan fans out there? I just got a book of his German  
> poems translated by Michael Hamburger. The introduction was both  
> fascinating and saddening. He was persecuted by the Nazis but  
> survived the Shoah, yet his parents died in the extermination  
> camps. This left an indelible mark of tragedy on him and he  
> committed suicide at age 49 in 1970. His poems feature  
> fragmentation and neologisms but are very evocative. I've just  
> started studying them. He was an extremely gifted poet,  
> multilingual and well published in his own time.
> Richard
> AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour now.
> _______________________________________________
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> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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