This first book-length collection of Eich’s poems in English makes available a poet who was a soldier and prisoner of war and then began to resurrect his native tongue as a language for poetry. These poems were translated over a period of fifteen years, often in consultation with the author until his death in 1972.
Table of Contents
Introduction • A Note on the Translations • A Günter Eich Chronology • A Mixture of Routes • Widely Travelled • Timetable • Viareggio • Old Postcards • Quotation from Norway • Salt • Berlin 1918 • Lemberg • Inventory • Cure • Seminar for Backward Pupils • Half • End of August • Brook in December • Learning About the Landscape • Seahorses • Days with Jays • Abandoned Mountain Pasture • Late June Early July • Smokebeer • Continuing the Conversation • Carstensen • Too Late for Modesty • Where I Live • Geometrical Place • A Day in Okayama • Ryoanji • Talks That Never Take Place • For Example • Repeating Dictionary • Marketplace • Carrying Bag • Preamble • Winter Student and Daughter-Son • Insight • Magic Spells • Remainder • Beethoven, Wolf, and Schubert • Sin • New Postcards • Change of Climate • Munch, Consul Sandberg • Nathanael • Little Daughter • Key Figure • Definitive • Lauras • Brickworks Between 1900 and 1910 • Some Remarks on “Literature and Reality”