I, Lonesome, Writing: Poems by Paul Celan
translated by Margret Guillemin
Dichten, the German word for writing poetry, literally means “to make dense,” and Celan’s poems are rich with neologisms and compounded words. As Celan himself suggested, the only way to decipher his poetry is to read it over and over again, allowing for multiple layers of meaning. Through all of Celan’s poetry runs the theme of you and I:
The world is gone,
I have to carry you…
As the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer so succinctly asked, “Who am I and who is you?” Is this the poet’s form of self-address? Is he speaking directly to the reader? Or is he ultimately addressing his ideas and his poetry? It is up to the reader to read, to re-read, and to speculate.
–Margret Guillemin
There was
The days
a glow
forget
between
each other
us
There was a glow
The days
forget each other
between us
There was
The days forget each other
The glow betweenus.
Incessantly under bombardment of omens.
Look through me,
here I am yet once more,
come
closer, I never
was other
than myself.
Immersio
With you, you eternal
neversongs, deep
below where
the word beloved
swam
ahead to the
word fields
there
I lie with
my soul-
algae full of names
around me – : I
unbaptized,
immersed.
YOU, BLOWN HERE with
a fanned out beach grass greeting,
I will never be there
when you do the cartwheel of joy under the sky,
the heavenward wheel,
I reach into its spokes
from an unthinkable distance,
I, lonesome, writing.
Published on June 7, 2016