Description
Poetry. Translated from the German by Rosmarie Waldrop. MOUNTAINS IN BERLIN, a selection from Erb's early poems (Burning Deck Press, 1995), showed her eye "fixed on the molecule" of life in the German Democratic Republic. Yet her close observation leaped off the page into the unadapted and unpredictable, and her complex syntax confounded ideological simplicities.
Since then, her poems have more and more focused on process. They document the movement of thought, Erb's incessant critical attention and reflection, her testing of possibilities, of genre borders. One of her books bears the subtitle: Poems and Other Journal Entries.
Her curiosity about the world and its possibilities is as sharp-eyed as ever, but now includes an almost obsessive interest in the adventure of language. Her pleasure in words is infectious.
Author Bio
Elke Erb lives in Berlin and is one of the most noted German poets. She has published more than twenty volumes of poetry. Also a book of essays and translations from the Russian (Tsvetaeva, Achmatova, Chlebnikov, etc.). Her many honors include, most recently, the Georg-Trakl and the Ernst-Jandl prizes.
Author City: USA
Rosmarie Waldrop's recent books of poetry include Driven to Abstraction, Curves to the Apple, Blindsight (New Directions), and Love, Like Pronouns (Omnidawn). Her novels, The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter and A Form/of Taking/It All, are available from Northwestern UP, her collected essays, Dissonance (if you are interested), from University of Alabama Press, the memoir, Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès, from Wesleyan UP. She translates German and French poetry (Elke Erb, Friederike Mayröcker, Edmond Jabès, Jacques Roubaud) and co-edits Burning Deck books with Keith Waldrop, in Providence, RI.
Author City: PROVIDENCE, RI USA