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    After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets
    After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets
    After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets
    Ebook177 pages1 hour

    After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets

    By Princeton University Press

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    They are nine women with much in common—all German speaking, all poets, all personal witnesses to the horror and devastation that was World War II. Yet, in this deeply moving collection, each provides a singularly personal glimpse into the effects of war on language, place, poetry, and womanhood.

    After Every War is a book of translations of women poets living in Europe in the decades before and after World War II: Rose Ausländer, Elisabeth Langgässer, Nelly Sachs, Gertrud Kolmar, Else Lasker-Schüler, Ingeborg Bachmann, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Dagmar Nick, and Hilde Domin. Several of the writers are Jewish and, therefore, also witnesses and participants in one of the darkest occasions of human cruelty, the Holocaust. Their poems, as well as those of the other writers, provide a unique biography of the time—but with a difference. These poets see public events through the lens of deep private losses. They chart the small occasions, the bittersweet family ties, the fruit dish on a table, the lost soul arriving at a railway station; in other words, the sheer ordinariness through which cataclysm is experienced, and by which life is cruelly shattered. They reclaim these moments and draw the reader into them.

    The poems are translated and introduced, with biographical notes on the authors, by renowned Irish poet Eavan Boland. Her interest in the topic is not abstract. As an Irish woman, she has observed the heartbreaking effects of violence on her own country. Her experience has drawn her closer to these nine poets, enabling her to render into English the beautiful, ruminative quality of their work and to present their poems for what they are: documentaries of resilience—of language, of music, and of the human spirit—in the hardest of times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 31, 2013
    ISBN9781400849611
    After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets

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      Book preview

      After Every War - Princeton University Press

      After Every War

      | FACING PAGES

      NICHOLAS JENKINS

      Series Editor

      HORACE, THE ODES

      New Translations by Contemporary Poets,

      edited by J. D. McClatchy

      HOTHOUSES

      Poems 1889,

      by Maurice Maeterlinck,

      translated by Richard Howard

      LANDSCAPE WITH ROWERS

      Poetry from the Netherlands,

      translated and introduced by J. M. Coetzee

      AFTER EVERY WAR

      Twentieth-Century Women Poets,

      translated from the German by Eavan Boland

      After Every War

      Twentieth-Century Women Poets

      Translations from the German

      by Eavan Boland

      PRINCETON

      UNIVERSITY

      PRESS

      Princeton & Oxford

      Copyright © 2004 by Eavan Boland

      Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

      In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY

      All Rights Reserved

      LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

      After every war : twentieth-century women poets / translations from the German by

           Eavan Boland.

                p.     cm. — (Facing pages)

           Includes bibliographical references and index.

           ISBN 0-691-11745-4 (alk. paper)

            1. German poetry—20th century—Translations into English. 2. German poetry—Women authors—Translations into English. I. Boland, Eavan.

           II. Series.

      PT1156.A38 2004

      831'.910809287—dc22       2003061014

      British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

      This book has been composed in Electra LH

      Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

      www.pupress.princeton.edu

      Printed in the United States of America

      10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

      The author acknowledges the following publishers for permission to translate from the German: Rose Ausländer: © S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 1990; Elisabeth Langgässer: er, Geist in den Sinnen behaust. © Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1951, Germany; Nelly Sachs: © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1961; Gertrud Kolmar: © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1983; Else Lasker-Schüler: © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1996; Ingeborg Bachmann ©Piper Verlag and Zephyr Press (U.S.); Marie Luise Kaschnitz: © Cassen Verlag, München, Germany; Hilde Domin: © 1987 S. Fischer Verlag GmbH Frankfurt am Main; Dagmar Nick: © Rimbaud Verlag. For photographs of the poets, the author gratefully acknowledges: S. Fischer Verlag (Rose Ausländer); Schiller-Nationalmuseum Deutsches Literaturearchiv (Elisabeth Langgässer); Suhrkamp Verlag (Nelly Sachs); Schiller-Nationalmuseum Deutsches Literaturearchiv (Gertrud Kolmar); Suhrkamp Verlag (Else Lasker-Schüler); Renate von Mangoldt (Ingeborg Bachmann); Suhrkamp Verlag (Marie Luise Kaschnitz); S. Fischer Verlag (Hilde Domin); and Peter Peitsch/peitschophoto.com (Dagmar Nick)

      TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

      and her friendship with the Burghartz family

      After every war somebody must clean up

      WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA

      CONTENTS

      Introduction 1

      ROSE AUSLÄNDER (b. 1901)

      A Biographical Note 16

      Mutterland / Motherland 18

      Damit kein Licht uns liebe / So That No Light Would Be There to Love Us 20

      Am Ende der Zeit / At the End of Time 22

      Verwundert / Amazed 24

      Die Fremden / Strangers 26

      Meine Nachtigall / My Nightingale 28

      Im Chagall-Dorf / In Chagall’s Village 30

      Biographische Notiz / Biographical Note 32

      Mein Schlüssel / My Key 34

      ELISABETH LANGGÄSSER (b. 1899)

      A Biographical Note 38

      Frühling 1946 / Spring 1946 40

      NELLY SACHS (b. 1891)

      A Biographical Note 46

      Wenn ich nur wüsste / If I Only Knew 48

      In der blauen Ferne / In the Blue Distance 50

      Bereit sind alle Länder aufzustehn / All the Lands of the Earth 52

      In der Flucht / In Flight 54

      In diesem Amethyst / In This Amethyst 56

      Kommt einer von ferne / If Someone Comes 58

      GERTRUD KOLMAR (b. 1894)

      A Biographical Note 62

      Das Opfer / The Victim 64

      ELSE LASKER-SCHÜLER (b. 1869)

      A Biographical Note 72

      Mein blaues Klavier / My Blue Piano 74

      Ich weiß / I Know 76

      Herbst / Autumn 78

      Abends / In the Evening 80

      Meine Mutter / My Mother 82

      Über glitzernden Kies / Over Glistening Gravel 84

      Ein einziger mensch / A Single Man 86

      INGEBORG BACHMANN (b. 1926)

      A Biographical Note 90

      Alle Tage / Every Day 92

      Botschaft / Message 94

      Die gestundete Zeit / Borrowed Time 96

      Dunkles zu sagen / To Speak of Dark Things 98

      Herbstmanöver / Autumn Maneuver 100

      Abschied von England / Departure from England 102

      Früher Mittag / Early Noon 104

      Exil / Exile 108

      Ihr Worte / You Words 110

      MARIE LUISE KASCHNITZ (b. 1901)

      A Biographical Note 116

      Hiroshima / Hiroshima 118

      Selinunte / Selinunte 120

      Nicht mutig / Not Brave 122

      HILDE DOMIN (b. 1909)

      A Biographical Note 126

      Köln / Cologne 128

      Geburtstage / Birthdays 130

      Exil / Exile 132

      DAGMAR NICK (b. 1926)

      A Biographical Note 136

      Flugwetter / Flying Weather 138

      Aufruf / Summons 140

      Den Generälen ins Soldbuch / In the Book of the Generals 142

      Niemandsland / No-Man’s-Land 144

      An Abel / To Abel 146

      Emigration / Emigration 148

      Notes 151

      Checklists 153

      Further Reading 165

      Index of Titles 167

      Author Key to Map

      Ausländer: b Czernowitz, 1901, d Dusseldorf, 1988

      Langgässer: b Alzey, 1899, d Karlsruhe, 1950

      Sachs: b Berlin, 1891, d Stockholm, 1970

      Kolmar: b Berlin, 1894, d Auschwitz, 1943

      Lasker-Schüler: b Elberfeld, 1869, d Jerusalem, 1945

      Bachmann: b Klagenfurt, 1926, d Rome, 1973

      Kaschnitz: b Karlsruhe, 1901, d Rome, 1974

      Domin: b Cologne, 1909, lives Heidelberg

      Nick: b Breslau, 1926, lives Munich

      PLACES OF ORIGIN

      After Every War

      INTRODUCTION

      I

      When I was a child two German girls came to help my mother in the house. It was just after the war. The small towns of Germany were in the grip of winter, hunger, and disgrace. These girls, who were sisters, hardly more than teenagers, had left that aftermath behind and come to the shelter of a country which had been neutral. There was rationing in Ireland. But there was also butter and meat. Clothing was plentiful. It was an easier place to be.

      I was too young to remember their actual arrival. They came into my consciousness with my first words, my first memories. I remember the kitchen, the damp clothes, the snap of the fire, the smell of peat. I remember one of them opening a door that led into the darkness of a back lane. I can hear their voices as they folded clothes and put away plates. I can hear my own voice as I

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