Poetry. Translated from the German by Audri Durchslag-Litt and Jeanette Litman-Demeestere. Else Lasker-Schuler was a leading Expressionist poet and one of the most prominent women writers of the early 20th century. She has been described by Karl Kraus as "the greatest lyric poet of modern Germany." Lasker-Schuler lived the life of a bohemian, sharing the artistic milieu of post World War I Berlin with friends such as Franz Marc and Gottfried Benn. When the Nazi government took power, Lasker-Schuler, after being accosted by a group of Nazis and beaten with an iron rod, immediately boarded a train to leave German. After a short stay in Zurich, her last years were spent in Israel, where she aligned herself with experimental writers celebrating their Jewish heritage.