In the Daytime
Hare's pelt sky. Even nowa clear wing writes.I too, remember,dust-coloured one, arrivedas a crane.
Bei Tag
Hasenfell-Himmel. Noch immerschreibt eine deutliche Schwinge.Auch ich, erinnere dich,Staub-farbene, kamals ein Kranich.
Feature Date
- May 4, 2020
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- Translation
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“In the Daytime” from Poems of Paul Celan by Paul Celan
Translated by Michael Hamburger.
Translation Copyright © Michael Hamburger 1972, 1980, 1988, 2002.
Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, Inc. (New York)
Paul Celan was a poet and translator born in the East European province of Bukovina. A Romanian Jew, he survived the death of both of his parents at the hands of the Nazis and eighteen months in a labor camp before escaping to Paris, where he spent most of his adult life. Celan was never able to overcome his sense of loss and alienation following the Second World War, and he died, a suicide, in 1970.
"[Celan's poems] embody a conviction that the truth of what has been broken and torn must be told with a jagged grace.”
—Robert Pinsky, The New Republic
“[Poems of Paul Celan] is a memorable volume and will influence our moral outlook and the practice of poetry for a long time to come.”
—J.M Cameron, New York Review of Books
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