Angina Days: Selected Poems

by Günter Eich, Michael Hofmann (Translator), Michael Hofmann (Introduction)

Overview

A bilingual edition of one of the most important German poets of the twentieth century

This is the most comprehensive English translation of the work of Günter Eich, one of the greatest postwar German poets. The author of the POW poem "Inventory," among one of the most famous lyrics in the German language, Eich was rivaled only by Paul Celan as the leading poet in the generation after Gottfried Benn and Bertolt Brecht. Expertly translated and introduced by Michael Hofmann, this collection gathers eighty poems, many drawn from Eich's later work and most of them translated here for the first time. The volume also includes the original German texts on facing pages.

As an early member of "Gruppe 47" (from which Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll later shot to prominence), Eich (1907-72) was at the vanguard of an effort to restore German as a language for poetry after the vitriol, propaganda, and lies of the Third Reich. Short and clear, these are timeless poems in which the ominousness of fairy tales meets the delicacy and suggestiveness of Far Eastern poetry. In his late poems, he writes frequently, movingly, and often wryly of infirmity and illness. "To my mind," Hofmann writes, "there's something in Eich of Paul Klee's pictures: both are homemade, modest in scale, immediately delightful, inventive, cogent."

Unjustly neglected in English, Eich finds his ideal translator here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691144979
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2010
Series:	Facing Pages
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Michael Hofmann is an award-winning poet and translator. His Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) appeared in 2009. His other books include the anthology Twentieth-Century German Poetry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and the book of essays Behind the Lines (Faber & Faber). He has translated Durs Grünbein, Franz Kafka, Wolfgang Koeppen, and Joseph Roth, among many other writers. He teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and lives in London and Hamburg.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments, xi

Introduction, xiii

from Abgelegene Gehöfte / Remote Smallholdings (1948)

Abgelegene Gehofte / Remote Smallholdings, 2

Pfannkuchenrezept / Recipe for Pancakes, 4

Camp 16 / Camp 16, 6

Inventur / Inventory, 8

Erster Januar / First of January, 12

from Botschaft en des Regens / Messages from the Rain (1955)

Ende eines Sommers / End of Summer, 16

Gegenwart / Th e Present, 18

D-Zug Munchen-Frankfurt / Munich-Frankfurt Express, 22

Kleine Reparatur / Minor Repair, 24

Weg zum Bahnhof / Way to the Station, 26

Lemberg / Lvov, 28

Andenken / Memorial, 30

Wo ich wohne / Where I Live, 32

Reise / Journey, 34

Mittags um zwei / Two in the Aft ernoon, 36

Betrachtet die Fingerspitzen / Examine Your Fingertips, 38

Briefstelle / From a Letter, 40

Einsicht / Understanding, 42

Ende August / End of August, 44

from Zu den Akten / Ad Acta (1964)

Alte Postkarten / Old Postcards, 48

Neue Postkarten / New Postcards, 52

Bericht aus einem Kurort / Report from a Spa, 56

Nachhut / Rearguard, 58

Rest / Remnant, 60

Alte Hollander / Old Dutch Masters, 62

Bruder Grimm / Brothers Grimm, 64

Zu spat fur Bescheidenheit / Too Late for Modesty, 66

Bestellung / Order, 68

Tragtasche / Holdall, 70

Ohne Unterschrift / Unsigned, 72

Jaques Devant, fur Viele / Jaques Devant, for the Many, 74

Aufgelassenes Zollamt / Old Customshouse, 76

Aussicht vom Spezial-Keller / Perspective from the Spezial-Keller, 78

Zunahme / Increase, 80

Auskunft e aus dem Nachlass / Tips from the Posthumous Papers, 82

Ungultige Landkarte / Fraudulent Map, 84

Topographie einer schoneren Welt / Topography of a Better World, 86

Fussnote zu Rom / Roman Footnote, 88

from Anlässe und Steingárten / Occasions and Rock Gardens (1966)

Timetable / Timetable, 92

Berlin 1918 / Berlin, 1918, 94

Kinder-und Hausmarchen / Fairy Tales, 96

Rauchbier / Rauchbier, 98

Alte Postkarten / Old Postcards, 100

Neue Postkarten / New Postcards, 106

Weitgereist / Traveling Far, 110

Fortschritt / Progress, 112

Halb / Half, 114

Satzzeichen / Punctuation Marks, 116

Zwei / Two, 118

Bett huten / Confi ned to Bed, 120

Schluss eines Kriminalromans / Th e End of the Th riller, 122

Armer Sonntag / Poor Sunday, 124

Verspatung / Delayed, 126

Lange Gedichte / Long Poems, 128

Nach Seumes Papieren / From Seume's Papers (1972)

Nordlicher Seufzer / Northern Sigh, 134

Stadtrand / Edge of Town, 136

Philologisch / Philological, 138

Nach dem Ende der Biographie / Aft er Setting Down

the Biography, 140

Optik / Optics, 142

Namen / Names, 144

Steuererklarung / Tax Declaration, 146

Augsburg / Augsburg, 148

Nach Seumes Papieren / From Seume's Papers, 150

Spater / Later, 152

from Uncollected Poems and Poems from Radio Plays

Der Regen in Eltville / The Rain in Eltville, 156

Plane / Plans, 158

Vorwinter / Early Winter, 160

Alter Dezember / Old December, 162

Nomaden / Nomads, 164

Freund und Horazleser / Friend and Reader of Horace, 166

aus: Tráume / from: Dreams, 168

Handel / Handel, 180

Napoleon denkt an Josephine / Napoleon Remembers Josephine, 182

Lange Gedichte / Long Poems, 184

Die vorige Woche / Last Week, 186

Und / And, 188

Landgasthof / Rustic Hotel, 190

Klinikfarben / Hospital Colors, 192

Vom Gluck / Of Happiness, 194

What People are Saying About This

Rosanna Warren

This is an extremely important book. Günter Eich is a highly significant German poet and Michael Hofmann is the master translator of contemporary German literature—both poetry and prose—into English. These pieces of Eich's are powerful, bitter, and compressed poems in English, and they will enlarge the landscape of postwar German poetry for Anglophone readers. Eich and Hofmann meet in blessed conjunction.
— Rosanna Warren, author of "Departure: Poems"

Belle Randall

Of the three postwar writers whose work seems most clearly to answer to Adorno's sense that no poetry can be written after the Holocaust, it is Eich (Beckett and Celan are the others) whose refusal of rhetoric is most thorough, with the result that the speaker—the authorial presence—whoever it is who would have persuaded, blamed, or badgered us, seems to have vanished into thin air, leaving nothing to come between ourselves and the pure experience offered by the poems.
— Belle Randall, poetry editor, "Common Knowledge"

From the Publisher

"Of the three postwar writers whose work seems most clearly to answer to Adorno's sense that no poetry can be written after the Holocaust, it is Eich (Beckett and Celan are the others) whose refusal of rhetoric is most thorough, with the result that the speaker—the authorial presence—whoever it is who would have persuaded, blamed, or badgered us, seems to have vanished into thin air, leaving nothing to come between ourselves and the pure experience offered by the poems."—Belle Randall, poetry editor, Common Knowledge

"This is an extremely important book. Günter Eich is a highly significant German poet and Michael Hofmann is the master translator of contemporary German literature—both poetry and prose—into English. These pieces of Eich's are powerful, bitter, and compressed poems in English, and they will enlarge the landscape of postwar German poetry for Anglophone readers. Eich and Hofmann meet in blessed conjunction."—Rosanna Warren, author of Departure: Poems

Editorial Reviews

"Winner of the 2012 Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation, American Academy of Arts and Letters"

"Runner-Up for the The 2011 Schlegel-Tieck Prize (for German Translation), The Society of Authors"

Runner-Up for the 2011 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, PEN American Center

From the Publisher

At last a major portion of the poetry of Günter Eich (1907-1972) has been made accessible to an English-speaking readership in a new translation.
— Axel Vieregg

Berlin Review of Books

Contemporary literature would be a great deal duller, sparser and more insular without Michael Hofmann. . . . Eich (1907-72) is among the most significant voices in post-war German poetry. For anyone new to [Eich], Hofmann's selection, drawn mainly from his later work, is an excellent introduction.
— Dennis O'Driscoll

PN Review

Since I mention poetry, I should say that Michael Hofmann's translations of the poems of the German poet Guenter Eich, Angina Days, is one of the best books to come out in 2010. Eich's acerbic, chafing, sensuous verses, dealing with life's most basic anxieties and activities, refute, through a combination of stubbornness and technique, Adorno's stricture about the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz.
— Amit Chaudhuri

Outlook India

Fortunately, renowned poet and translator Michael Hofmann has brought a selection of Eich's late poetry into sharp, searing English in Angina Days, a book that will remain the definitive translated edition of Eich's late work. . . . Eich's scaled-back language—in Hofmann''s deft translation—facilitates a devastatingly unsentimental tone appropriate for this clear-eyed consideration of what it means to be a prisoner, and what a prisoner's simple possessions mean to him. . . . Michael Hofmann's thrilling new translations of this neglected master will stick like barbs in the minds of English-language readers for years to come.
— Stephan Delbos

Prague Post

Angina Days, a crisp new selection translated by Michael Hofmann and published in Princeton's 'Facing Pages' series, is an opportunity for Eich to secure at last the English-speaking readership he has long deserved. In the German-speaking world, Eich is widely accepted as a twentieth-century classic, the supreme poet of unease. His poem 'Inventur' ('Inventory') is one of the best known poems in the language. Born in 1907 in Lebus on the Oder, a small village near Berlin, Eich was a member, along with Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, of the Gruppe 47, a literary association 'called into being to cleanse and adjust and simplify' the German language after its abuse by the Third Reich, as Hofmann explains in his excellent introduction. . . . Hofmann's translations in Angina Days have the confidence, clearness and clout to offer Eich salvation from obscurity. . . . Hofmann's new translations are neither cumbersome nor dull. They work as poems independently from the German. They are animated, idiomatic, attractively spry, and above all they allow Eich's voice to reach us loud and clear—peevish, skeptical, true to itself, irresistible.
— Siriol Troup

Times Literary Supplement

Scenes of isolated survival amid bewildering change appear throughout Angina Days, an excellent comprehensive bilingual selection of Eich's poems edited and translated by Michael Hofmann.
— John Palattella

Nation

Contemporary literature would be a great deal duller, sparser and more insular without Michael Hofmann. . . . Eich (1907-72) is among the most significant voices in post-war German poetry. For anyone new to [Eich], Hofmann's selection, drawn mainly from his later work, is an excellent introduction.

PN Review - Dennis O'Driscoll

Since I mention poetry, I should say that Michael Hofmann's translations of the poems of the German poet Guenter Eich, Angina Days, is one of the best books to come out in 2010. Eich's acerbic, chafing, sensuous verses, dealing with life's most basic anxieties and activities, refute, through a combination of stubbornness and technique, Adorno's stricture about the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz.

Outlook India - Amit Chaudhuri

Fortunately, renowned poet and translator Michael Hofmann has brought a selection of Eich's late poetry into sharp, searing English in Angina Days, a book that will remain the definitive translated edition of Eich's late work. . . . Eich's scaled-back language—in Hofmann''s deft translation—facilitates a devastatingly unsentimental tone appropriate for this clear-eyed consideration of what it means to be a prisoner, and what a prisoner's simple possessions mean to him. . . . Michael Hofmann's thrilling new translations of this neglected master will stick like barbs in the minds of English-language readers for years to come.

Prague Post - Stephan Delbos

At last a major portion of the poetry of Günter Eich (1907-1972) has been made accessible to an English-speaking readership in a new translation.

Berlin Review of Books - Axel Vieregg

Scenes of isolated survival amid bewildering change appear throughout Angina Days, an excellent comprehensive bilingual selection of Eich's poems edited and translated by Michael Hofmann.

Nation - John Palattella

Angina Days, a crisp new selection translated by Michael Hofmann and published in Princeton's 'Facing Pages' series, is an opportunity for Eich to secure at last the English-speaking readership he has long deserved. In the German-speaking world, Eich is widely accepted as a twentieth-century classic, the supreme poet of unease. His poem 'Inventur' ('Inventory') is one of the best known poems in the language. Born in 1907 in Lebus on the Oder, a small village near Berlin, Eich was a member, along with Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, of the Gruppe 47, a literary association 'called into being to cleanse and adjust and simplify' the German language after its abuse by the Third Reich, as Hofmann explains in his excellent introduction. . . . Hofmann's translations in Angina Days have the confidence, clearness and clout to offer Eich salvation from obscurity. . . . Hofmann's new translations are neither cumbersome nor dull. They work as poems independently from the German. They are animated, idiomatic, attractively spry, and above all they allow Eich's voice to reach us loud and clear—peevish, skeptical, true to itself, irresistible.

Times Literary Supplement - Siriol Troup