German Poetry Now: A bilingual online-anthology, featured by DAS GEDICHT chapbook
Hans Eichhorn
Look, says the child, it’s a large tree.
Spring is creaking in the pine cones.
And the dark green of their needles is
wandering down the brook, up the cowslip brae.
Hold the baton still. The dog is trudging
back towards the farm baring his teeth.
translated by Paul-Henri Campbell
+ German Original / Das OriginalHans Eichhorn
Schau, sagt das Kind, das ist ein großer Baum.
Der Frühling kracht in den Zapfen der Kiefern.
Und das dunkle Grün der Nadeln wandert den
Bach entlang, den Dotterblumenrain hinauf.
Den Taktstock nicht bewegen. Mit fletschenden
Zähnen trottet der Hund zurück in den Hof.
© Hans Eichhorn, Attersee und Kirchdorf an der Krems (Österreich)
aus: DAS GEDICHT Bd. 22 / Oktober 2014
+ About the author / Zum Autor
The Austrian writer Hans Eichhorn was born in 1956 in Vöcklabruck/Upper Austria and today lives in the Salzkammergut at the Attersee. The Residenz Verlag, a defining Austrian publishing house (founded in 1956 in St. Pölten), published Hans Eichhorn’s debut »Das Zimmer als voller Bauch« in 1993. Eichhorn’s work corresponds intimately with his environment. There is a tendency to calibrate, center, but also disturb Austrian identity, an acute sensibility that oscillates between a wondrous gaze at the beauty of landscape and stupefying panic. As it is typical in his generation, readers will find a yearning for authenticity, a sort of existential realism on the fringe of a total disenchantment of self. Commentators have compared Eichhorn to John Ashbery and Les Murray. Along with several volumes of poetry, Eichhorn authored fiction, diaries, prosaic miniatures, travel literature. Reviewing his novel »Die Liegenstatt« (2006), editors at the newspaper Rheinischer Merkur wrote: »Hans Eichhorn allows chaos and emptiness enter into the text, the result of which is a challenge for the author as well as for the reader. It is text that consciously pushes forward all the way towards the threshold of failing.«
»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 are also 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
