Paul Celan,
the wilding convictionthat this is to be said differently thanso. —Paul Celan, from Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry, transl. by Pierre Joris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)
Tag: Paul Celan
Paul Celan
PLAYTIME: the windows, they too,read you all that secrecyfrom your whirlsand mirror itin the jelly-eyed beyond[…]strengthenedthe hour stops next to you,you speak,you stand,most firm abovethe parabelized messengersby voiceby matter. —Paul Celan, from Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry, transl. by Pierre Joris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)
Paul Celan
And the too much of my speaking:heaped up round the littlecrystal dressed in the style of your silence. — Paul Celan, from “Below,” Poetry Magazine December 1971
Paul Celan
What is returning?Nearly nothing, but it could be a snowflake — Paul Celan, “Questions & Answers,” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
What is returning?Nearly nothing, but it could be a snowflake — Paul Celan, “Questions & Answers,” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
Yes, me, I prefer the hourglass so you can smash it whenI tell you of eternity’s lie — Paul Celan, “[Blinded by giant leaps],” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
You were, when I met you, both things for me: the sensuous and the spiritual. That can never come asunder… — Paul Celan in a letter to Ingeborg Bachmann, quoted in ‘The Correspondence of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan’ by Charlie Louth from ‘Centres of Cataclysm: Celebrating Fifty Years of Modern Poetry in Translation’
Paul Celan
How you die out in me: down to the lastworn-outknot of breathyou’re there, with asplinterof life. ― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan. (Anvil Press Poetry November 9, 1995) Originally published 1972.
Paul Celan
Don’t sign your namebetween worlds, surmountthe manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain,learn to live. ― Paul Celan, “Don’t sign your name,” Glottal Stop. Translated by Heather McHugh & Nikolai Popov. (Wesleyan; 1st edition September 30, 2000)
Paul Celan
There will be something, later,that brims full with youand lifts uptoward a mouth Out of a shardstrewncrazeI stand upand look upon my hand,how it draws the oneand onlycircle. — Paul Celan, “Es wird etwas sein,” or “The One and Only Circle.” Trans. John Felstiner. American Poetry Review; Nov/Dec2000, Vol. 29 Issue 6, p37.
The Vale of Soul-Making 