Poems of Paul Celan

Paul Celan is relentless in the demands he makes upon his readers, just as life--in the form of the Nazis--was relentless in its treatment of him and those he loved. Even in Michael Hamburger's skillfully translated Paul Celan: Selected Poems (Hamburger's introduction, in which he discusses some of the many difficulties of translating a poet like Celan, is fascinating) much of Celan's work will be opaque to all but a few readers--and maybe to all readers. Still, so powerful are Celan's words, so searing the flashes of meaning that emerge, that we continue to want to live with these poems, and that is what it will to extract all that we never doubt is there.

Sparse, hiccuping, opaque.

Example of what haunted me:

NIGHT

Pebbles and scree. And a shard note, thin,
as the hour's message of comfort.

Exchange of eyes, finite, at the wrong time:
image-constant,
lignified
the retina --:
the sign of eternity.

Conceivable:
up there in the cosmic network of rails,
like stars,
the red of two mouths.

Audible (before dawn?): a stone
that made the other its target.

No idea how to rate this one. As translator Michael Hamburger said about confronting the difficulties of figuring out English word choice, I'm just taking "the gesture of the poem[s] as a whole," instead of attempting to come to some understanding about what they even mean. "Death Fugue" and "Fadensonnen," two of my favorites of Celan's, are in here; they're sort of my gateway drugs to this particular poet, and I'm sure I'll keep coming back to this collection in doubtlessly futile attempts to nail down what's going on.

Paul Celan was born Paul Antschel (Ancel) in 1920 in Romania. His parents were murdered in concentration camps and his mother’s grisly death informed many of his most well-known poems. After the war, Celan changed his name, using an anagram, moved to Paris, wrote poetry and today is considered one of the greatest post-war European poets. Like several of his generation of Jewish writers who survived the Holocaust (including Jean Amery, whose name, by the way, was also an anagram of his birth name, Hans Maier), Celan ultimately committed suicide. Several of his most famous poems can be found in this anthology.
Celan’s poetry, which centers around the Holocaust, is difficult and frightening. The language is dense, rich in metaphor, show more musical symbols and allusions to both Biblical and mythical imagery. One of the most haunting poems is Todesfuge or Death Fugue. This poem is at once mournful and caustic. Without explication, it evokes the death of innocence, the crematoria and the genocide of a people. Another great poem is Shibboleth, whose title is, in itself, symbolic of the classification and destruction of a people. Celan’s poetry isn’t easy to read or interpret but is heartbreaking and really powerful. I only wish I could find a recording of his poems because I suspect hearing his poems would be even more powerful and affecting. show less

Three stars for the translation. Noble effort but clunky.

Three stars too for the originals. I'm kind of shocked at myself to write that as I used to feel I could follow so deeply the winding curves of these poems as they fall toward silence, tief im Schnee etc...and I was convinced they made me feel closer to understanding than before.

But reading these now, I think they are a blind alley, or at best an amazing cul de sac, in the history of poetry. Except for the un-Celan-like Todesfugue, they just don't succeed in communicating, in fact their failure to communicate their intended meanings--their willed obscurity--is the foundation of their art. Falling out of love with Celan's poetry feels like falling out of love with a lover, where show more I'm wondering what I ever saw in the relationship. show less

I'm reading them in a german to dutch translation.
Beautifull but haunting poems by a person who is reinventing his words after the nazis took away his language and....his parents.
I'm reading this poems for about 30 years, but I'm still looking for entries and light. Heavy, but essential.

This is a hard book and I found the writing abstract and remote - given other reviews, no doubt I've missed something that others can hear.