German Poetry Now: A bilingual online-anthology, featured by DAS GEDICHT chapbook
Maik Lippert
Smoke detectors save lives
Says the fire department
Inhabitants of historical buildings, however, fear
That their stucco ceilings might be disfigured by plastic boxes
Not everybody is a Venusian after all
And already has a mobile
Hanging around with miniature UFOs
Smoke detectors save lives
Says the fire department
That isn’t a question of aesthetics
But it is for me (someone replies)
I’d rather die
Than look up at the plastic box upon the ceiling every evening
(And somebody at the fire department thinks: well, die
In beauty
When I come and play with fire)
translated by Paul-Henri Campbell
+ German Original / Das OriginalMaik Lippert
Rauchmelder können Leben retten
Sagt die Feuerwehr
Bewohner von Altbauten haben aber Angst
Ihre Stuckdecken mit weißen Plastikdosen zu verschandeln
Nicht jeder ist schließlich ein Venusianer
Und hat im Zimmer bereits ein Mobile
Aus Miniaturufos hängen
Rauchmelder können Leben retten
Sagt die Feuerwehr
Das ist keine Frage von Schönheit
Für mich schon (antwortet einer)
Ich sterbe lieber
Als dass ich jeden Abend an der Decke auf eine weiße Plastikdose schaue
(Und einer bei der Feuerwehr denkt: Dann stirb
In Schönheit
Wenn ich zündeln gehe)
© Maik Lippert, Berlin
aus: DAS GEDICHT Bd. 22 / Oktober 2014
+ About the author / Zum Autor
Maik Lippert was born in Erfurt in 1966. He studied in Moscow, lived in Frankfurt am Main for a few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Today, he lives in Berlin. As many Eastern German poets, Lippert’s work is informed by a keen sense of reorienting life under a set of new unknowns in post-Reunification Germany, but also – as a result – has been galvanized by an acute sensitivity for difference and otherness. He describes his literary attitude as characterized by a deeply ingrained sense of realism. Having worked in the chemical industry for some time, he frequently incorporates terminology and concepts from that area into his literary work. Unlike authors in Western Germany, his generation of Eastern German poets felt the drift and rift of creating a new country after German Reunification much more dramatically. Juries have been good to him: he received, for instnace, the Wolfgang-Weyrauch-Förderpreis during the Literarischer März in 2001. In his recent collection of poems, he is resituating his stance towards what he calls yearning for the province, »Sehnsucht Provinz« – it was published by Hochroth in Berlin (2010).
»Lustful Things – Geile Sachen!« im Archiv
»Lustful Things – Geile Sachen!« is an online collection of contemporary German-language poetry in English translation. All poems were taken from issue no. 22 of the German poetry magazine DAS GEDICHT, focused on the Poetry of Things. New English translations by Paul-Henri Campbell as well as the German originals are published here every Wednesday. All poems of this online-collection will also be published in a special print-edition. In order to read previous poems in this series, click here.
»Lustful Things – Geile Sachen!« ist eine Online-Sammlung zeitgenössischer deutschsprachiger Dinggedichte in englischer Übersetzung. Alle Texte sind Band 22 der Zeitschrift DAS GEDICHT entnommen. Jeden Mittwoch erscheint ein neues Gedicht, das von Paul-Henri Campbell ins Englische übertragen wurde, zusammen mit dem deutschen Original. Die Beiträge dieser Online-Anthologie gibt es auch als Sonderausgabe in Buchform. Alle bereits erschienenen Folgen von »Lustful Things – Geile Sachen!« finden Sie hier.
»Lustful Things – Geile Sachen!« im Archiv
