דער קערפער פֿון השם"During a 1969 #poetry reading in #Israel, #PaulCelan’s audience requested “#Deathfugue,” his most famous #poem. With its hypnotic images of death as “a master from #Deutschland,” prisoners drinking the “black milk of dawn” and smoke rising to “a grave in the clouds,” it remains one of the most powerful artifacts of the #Holocaust.
But like a rock star weary of endlessly repeating his greatest hits, #Celan declined. Instead, he offered other #poems, scorned by some commentators as “hermetic, esoteric, divorced from reality.”
So we learn from #AnnaArno’s intelligent, intricate #biography, Paul Celan: A Life, ably #translated from the #Polish by #SorenGauger. Interweaving #literarycriticism with Celan’s life story, #Arno quotes liberally from #PierreJoris’ English #translations. Even so, she can’t quite do the work justice."
