Paul Celan — “Psalm”
60 years ago today Paul Celan wrote the poem “Psalm,” in Paris most likely. Below my translation, the original & the commentary by Barbara Wiedemann & myself (from Memory Rose into Threshold Speech). ...
Category: Poetry
Happy Birthday Jerry!
Today Jerome Rothenberg, poet, translator, anthologist extraordinaire turns 89! Many, many Happy Returns, my friend! & here, as we come to the end of this year of desolation, a few quotes from your book...
A Poem or something, a gift, a song, for Paul Celan at 100
Her hand giant shadow — mit Bleistift on ceiling with night reading light pillowed between us — graphites an unseen page, on which I’ll write, standing up in the kitchen, ...
4 Poems by Paul Celan, with Commentaries
As I am in the process of proofing my final Paul Celan volume of translations — Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry — to be published by FSG in early November,...
On the 50th Anniversary of Nelly Sachs’ Passing
The great Jewish German-Swedish poet & playwright Nelly Sachs passed on this day, 12 May, 1970. Raised in Germany, the rise of nazism in the thirties terrified her so much that at one point she...
Paul Celan: Fifty Years Later: Tenebrae & 5 More
It was exactly 50 years ago, on the night of 19 to 20 April 1970 that Paul Celan left his apartment on the avenue Emile Zola, and succumbed to his psychic demons: the Pont Mirabeau...
Abdellatif Laâbi’s ” Perishable Poems”
A pleasure right now here in the turmoil of virus to sit down & read through the latest Abdellatif Laâbi collection of poems, excellently translated by Peter Thompson, & published by Dialogos in Nola....
In Celebration of Amjad Nasser, a Poet Who ‘Mourns Himself While Still Alive’
Via the always excellent ArabLit came the news this morning of Amjad Nasser’s illness. I met him many years ago, in Paris, & he & his writing were immediately very close to me. It was...
Dareen Tatour’s Appeal Partially Accepted: Poem Is Not a Crime
via Arabic Literature and Translation Yesterday’s battle in Nazareth District Court was a victory for artistic expression but not for free speech, when charges against Dareen Tatour’s poem “Resist, My People, Resist Them” were overturned, but...
Arcana: A Stephen Jonas Reader
Tam my mail carrier knocked at the door today at 1:14 p.m. & handed me — finally, finally, finally! — a book I have looked forward to for many years now: Arcana A...
“Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021)” Contra Mundum Press
“Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello” Contra Mundum Press
“Conversations in the Pyrenees”
“A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly.” Edited by Pierre Joris & Peter Cockelbergh
“An American Suite” (Poems) —Inpatient Press
“Arabia (not so) Deserta” : Essays on Maghrebi & Mashreqi Writing & Culture
“Barzakh” (Poems 2000-2012)
“Fox-trails, -tales & -trots”
“The Agony of I.B.” — A play. Editions PHI & TNL 2016
“The Book of U / Le livre des cormorans”
“Memory Rose Into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan”
“Paul Celan, Microliths They Are, Little Stones”
“Paul Celan: Breathturn into Timestead-The Collected Later Poetry.” Translated & with commentary by Pierre Joris. Farrar, Straus & Giroux