Todtnauberg
Paul Celan (1920 in Cernauti, Romania - 1970 in Paris) was a poet and translator. Paul
Antschel was born into a Jewish family in Romania, but as a writer used the pseudonym
"Paul Celan," becoming one of the major German-languuage poets after World War II. Celans
parents were deported by the Nazis in 1942 to a death camp in Transnistria (area between
Moldvia and Ukraine). His Father died of thyphoid, his mother was shot. The deportation
and the death of his parents left deep marks in Paul Celan. From 1942-1943 he was
imprisoned in work camps and had to work in road construction in southern Moldavia. After
the liberation by the Red Army, Celan went back to Czernowitz and finally settled in Paris
in 1948. In 1969 he travelled to Jerusalem, only fwe months before his death.
Circumstances and true date of his death are not really known but it is believed that he
drowned himself in the Seine River in April 1970. His body was found near Coubevoie, ten
kilometres downstream in the Seine. He was buried on May 12th 1970 in Paris.
Todtnauberg (Paul Celan)
Arnika, Augentrost, der
Trunk aus dem Brunnen mit dem
Sternwürfel drauf,
in der
Hütte, (= Hut in English)
die in das Buch
- wessen Namen nahms auf
vor dem meinen? -
die in dies Buch
geschriebene Zeile von
einer Hoffnung heute,
auf eines Denkenden
kommendes
Wort
im Herzen,
Waldwasen, uneingeebnet
Orchis und Orchis, einzeln,
Krudes, später, im Fahren,
deutlich,
der uns fährt, der Mensch
der's mit anhört,
die halb-
beschrittenen Knüppel-
pfade im Hochmoor,
Feuchtes,
viel.
--------------------------------------------
Arnica, eyebright, the
draft from the well with the
star-die on top,
in the
Hütte
written in the book
- whose name did it record
before mine? -
in this book
the line about
a hope, today,
for a thinker's
word
to come,
in the heart,
forest sward, unleveled,
orchis and orchis, singly,
crudeness, later, while driving,
clearly,
he who drives us, the man,
he who also hears it,
the half-
trod log-
trails on the highmoor,
humidity,
much.
Celan: "Todtnauberg" (translated by Pierre Joris)
Used by permission of the translator
Copyright © Gert W. Knop | Year Posted 2010
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