GREAT
POETRY
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Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass headlines this amazing collection edited by Mark Terrill. Contemporary German poetry is remarkable not only for its dazzling inventiveness, but for how little we know of it in America. How could we have missed out on such literary talent living practically next door? Critics have overlooked it because, as Mark Terrill points out, today’s German poets are strictly individualists, belonging to no school or trend that would help publicize (and distort) their creativity. Trust Atlanta Review to discover the world’s hidden treasures of poetry, and deliver them to your door!
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Library
Gerhard Falkner
translated by Silvia Cernea
Of you I possess
ten volumes of your voice
the jubilee edition of your body
the so called Leipzig edition of 1998
a few exquisite bindings
of your skin
with barbed bracelet circling the spine
beyond that, prolific meaningful glances
and a personal drama
that’s been playing for years
moreover I own
annotations, reviews and hermeneutics
on laughter, tears and excesses
en masse
finally still a couple of poems
that, after having exploded in my heart
showered down on our small disorderly home
like the ashes of Gomorrah
only to end up
after years of agony
in the vacuum cleaner bag
Bouillabaisse
Anne Dorn
translated by Mark Terrill
The brief moment, which I so love,
in the Terminal at the Gare du Nord,
where I am who I’d like to be:
the table is pulled aside,
the chair slides in place. My neighbor
is a person slurping oysters,
lost in his thoughts.
For me as well the white linen napkin
spread across the dress. And
Bouillabaisse, this mixture of ocean
and pollen. No wine,
just the noble water. Stretching out
under the gaze of the maitre d’hotel,
in whose care I am
like no one else.
The brass railings glinting,
the steps, hushed. Buchara, red.
And everyone, without exception,
lost in the world
shortly before departure,
arrived from wherever,
and on the way to, who knows where?
This moment between the trains,
full of the flavorful bittersweet
of the saffron: “Bouillabaisse!”
Trotsky, Goethe and Happiness (excerpt)
Jörg Fauser
translated by Mark Terrill
No sooner was I off the needle,
I stumbled into the next trap:
the Revolution.
The Revolution was named Louise,
who had unbelievably narrow hips,
sparkling eyes, fluttering black
hair, came from Paris
and was a Trotskyite.
We lived together in one of the
squatted houses, considered ourselves
to be in good form, even considered
ourselves in love, and I palavered,
when palaver was expected,
waved flags, when flag waving
was expected, and breakfasted
against all the teachings
of the Great Chairman
with a bottle of vermouth
and a nice decadent feeling
in bed.
That’s happiness, I thought.
That’s happiness, I said to Louise.
Why don’t we just forget about the Revolution,
the senseless palaver and the flags
and the endless confrontations
about the factories in Shanghai,
find ourselves some quiet corner
where I can drink my beer in peace and
in between write a poem or two,
et du reste l’amour?
And Trotsky? cried Louise,
and the comrades in prison?
Your bourgeois happiness, phooey! Beer
and poems, while the Revolution
is being organized!
It was all downhill from there….
Child
Nicolas Born
translated by Eric Torgersen
I don’t know
what to do with you
everywhere your red
blue and yellow blocks
get in
my way
I’m too old
to understand your stories now
I can already see
my answers are
too dumb
if you really want to learn something
go away
but that’s not all
should I perhaps
come out and say it (?)
you’re looking
at me so wide-
one
day you’ll be bent like me
then we’ll both wonder
what to do with ourselves
a big
bus drives away with us
you’ll see that order
is made up of nothing but disorder
and there will be words
(forgive me)
that will hurt you
but for now we get up together
catch cold together
you eat with me
sleep by me
speak
to me and sometimes
look at me
as if you already knew everything.
Imago
Hendrik Rost
translated by Mark Terrill
This has to do with beauty,
to stay at home for a few days alone;
the summer approaches its delivery date,
and I observe an ordinary bird,
who halts like a hummingbird at the lilies.
It’s late afternoon, damp air lies
across this frail neighborhood,
and it’s I who am responsible for the shadows
which I throw. The single wing of a dragonfly
sparkles in the light—
her former body still clinging
to a stalk above the water.
This is the house of the early poems,
the house of the endangered new ones.
Half of every issue of AR is open to general submissions.
Here are couple from the open section:
Papal Tombs, Basilica of St. Peter
Sharon Cumberland
The electronic voice—This is a sacred place;
maintain silence and reflection—repeated in six
languages ends the possibility of silence.
The river of hot tourists prompts reflection
on cool lunch: a glass of Frascati, a plate
of antipasti. In the dimness, devotees
kneel before popes who dine on heavenly
food: eucharistic bread, ambrosia, divinity.
My eye falls on yet another label for yet
another bronzed and marbled tomb. Here
lies Charles Edward Stuart—Hey!
I read the dates. It’s Bonnie Prince Charlie!
I am startled awake. How can this be?
His bones, a stone’s throw from Peter’s own,
lie banished, on alien soil, the end of the line:
six feet of holy ground in exchange for a nation.
I want to pat the brazen crown in sympathy.
Instead I snake through the crowd, ushered
into the light by a voice in six languages:
Exit left. When you leave, there is no return.
Elk
Lowell Jaeger
Count the tines on the rack,
head mounted on the wall.
Marlboro haze, pool ball clack,
shouts and laughter crowd the hall.
Now my gut aches me back
to a frosted sunrise, alpine grove.
A bull’s bugle echoes rock
to rock, lifts to crags above
and blue beyond. Little ear
of each aspen leaf a-
I’m crouched, struck dumb. So near
the beast, my neck hairs tingle
as he snorts, stomps, struts, blows
his regal call. Someone’s stuffed
the carcass, nailed on the wall.
Just hide and bone. No elk at all.
A Taste of
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