German Poetry Now: A bilingual online-anthology, featured by DAS GEDICHT chapbook
Fitzgerald Kusz
loosely based on eichendorff
Does a song sleep in each thing
that dreams onwards and onwards;
And the world’ll begin to sing,
if you find the magic-word.
Joseph von Eichendorff
Iffin er’ythang a rhaym’s a snoozin’
ain’t it a snoozin’ in that there pencil sharp’nerr,
in them quills or inna eeraserr?
Wat duz a pencil sharp’nerr dream uhv anyway?
Of a quill-pen, when it’s a snoozin’?
Wat’s goin’ on in that eeraserr’s thick rubber head?
Wat kinda rhaym is a snoozin’ in him?
Where’s that magic wurd a hahdin’?
Oooh, Aikindoorff!
translated by Paul-Henri Campbell
+ German Original / Das OriginalFitzgerald Kusz
frei nach eichendorff
Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen,
Die da träumen fort und fort,
Und die Welt hebt an zu singen,
Triffst du nur das Zauberwort.
Joseph von Eichendorff
wenn in allerm ä gedichd schläifd
schläifds dann aa innerm bleischdifdschbidzä
emm füllfedähaldä oddä emm radiägummi?
wos drammd ä bleischdifdschbidzä
oddä ä füllfedähaldä wennä schläifd?
wos gäihd innerm radiägummi voä?
wos fiärä gedichd schläifd in imm?
wou bleibd es zaubäwodd?
ach, eichendorff!
© Fitzgerald Kusz, Nürnberg
aus: DAS GEDICHT Bd. 22 / Oktober 2014
+ About the author / Zum Autor
Fitzgerald Kusz was born in 1944 in Nuremberg, the city of Albrecht Dürer. Fitzgerald Kusz (actually Rüdiger Kusz) may positively be one of the few remaining linguistic aborigines of Franconia, a region that is politically part of the state of Bavaria, but is regularly declared an autonomous region by its inhabitants. Kusz is a poet of the vernacular, which varies considerably from the High German that was forced upon the various linguistic regions of Germany as the standard mode of sophisticated discourse in the 18th Century. Kusz is, in a way, a rebel, an overwhelmingly successful oral underdog whose theater piece »Schweig, Bub!« (roughly: Hold yer tongue, boy!) premiered in the National Theater Nuremberg in 1976 and has since seen more than 700 performances. Imitating the phonetic pattern and syntax of the Franconian vernacular, which is a far cry from the purged orthography taught in state schools, his books have bizarre titles, words that might as well have been transcribed from the lips of some archaic civilization, even though they are about rather modern objects, such as cell phones, King Kong, the travails of air travel etc. Kusz is the author of books titled »Wouhii« or »Bräisälä« or »muggn« with poems that include lines like »ä suän keeskoung« or »mid sich rumschlebbd«. This sociolect isn’t a fusion of Yiddish and Finnish, but is probably as indecipherable to a German native speaker from Hamburg or Berlin as it is incomprehensible to someone alien to the Teutonic tongue. This emphatic demonstration of lingual individuality has made Kusz special in the poetic landscape of Germany, though vernacular poetry is in fashion again in every German-speaking region from the North Sea to Northern Italy. His work has been adapted for television as well as radio broadcasting. It isn’t surprising that Fitzgerald Kusz also found a musical form for his style, the Blues. He created the duo »Blues & Kusz« and picks up on an American tradition of rediscovering and celebrating regional vocal heritages.
»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
