Translations
This page will contain poetry that I have translated, with acknowledgements where appropriate and with permission of the original poet. Translations are seldom more, can seldom be more, than approximations. If this is true of prose, it is still more true in the case of verse. Nevertheless, translating poetry is an enjoyable, challenging and hopefully even an improving exercise for the poet. So much poetry is available in the English language, however, that I shall restrict my choice of translations to verse which has not been published to my knowledge in English at all, yet in my opinion deserves to be. Those who can understand the poem in the original may be made aware of poets of whom they might otherwise not have heard, while those who cannot read the original language might be given some sense of the music of the original poem. The poetry will be chosen mainly but not exclusively on the grounds that I believe that there exists an occult impetus to exclude all poetry written with a sense of national, or dare I say racial, identity from being seen or heard by those who read poetry.
November
From Scharlach und Schwan, reprinted and translated here with permission of the author. Published by Edition Arnshaugk 1990
Konrad WindischOft scheint uns, daß wir freier sind als die vor der Tür ohne Klinke Wir haben die Freiheit in uns erworben. Ihr Schicksal, ein ganzes Leben bergab zu gehen, ist bedauerlicher als das unserer. Often to us it seems that we are more free than they before the door without latch and bar. We have gained freedom within us. Their fate: life long going down, is more pitiful than ours. From Gefängnislieder, reprinted here with permission of the author. First published by Alma Verlag Bossum in 1978. The writer was for time a political prisoner in Austria. |
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Warum nur schau ich immer zu der Türe?
Es kommen doch nur Menschen, die ich nicht erwarte Das weiß ich auch, und schaue unverwandt zu Tür. Denn möglich ist es, daß dein Schatten kommt. Obwohl ich weiß, daß Schatten nie durch Türen kommen Konrad Windisch from Sie nennen es Liebe |
So why do I keep looking to the door?
Only people come through whom I do not expect And I know that too. I persist in looking to the door For your shadow may Come through. Although I know that shadows never come through doors. Translated and publiched with kind permission of the author |
Form und Gestalt
Nicht das kaum Entgorene
gibt dem Hiersein Halt.
Stündlich ins Verlorene
treibt uns Todsgewalt.
Erst das streng Erkorene
bleibt und wird nicht alt:
Alles Ungeborene
will in die Gestalt.
Form and Shape
Not the hardly defermented
gives backing to our being here.
By the hour the violence of death
drives us into desolation.
Only the staunchly elected
remains and will not age:
Everything unborn
Seeks shape.
From Gedichte, a collection of poems by Josef Weinheber selected by Firedrich Sacher (Hoffmann und Campe 1978.) Translated and published with kind permission of the Josef Weinheber Gesellschaft
Nicht das kaum Entgorene
gibt dem Hiersein Halt.
Stündlich ins Verlorene
treibt uns Todsgewalt.
Erst das streng Erkorene
bleibt und wird nicht alt:
Alles Ungeborene
will in die Gestalt.
Form and Shape
Not the hardly defermented
gives backing to our being here.
By the hour the violence of death
drives us into desolation.
Only the staunchly elected
remains and will not age:
Everything unborn
Seeks shape.
From Gedichte, a collection of poems by Josef Weinheber selected by Firedrich Sacher (Hoffmann und Campe 1978.) Translated and published with kind permission of the Josef Weinheber Gesellschaft