Breathturn

Paul Celan

Translated from the German with an Introduction by Pierre Joris

A Bilingual Edition

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Part of 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics

In the 25 years since his death in 1970, Paul Celan’s reputation, though already firmly established while he was alive, has grown steadily. He is now clearly perceived as one of the two or three greatest German-language poets of the century. As the critic George Steiner wrote: “Celan is almost certainly the major European poet of the period after 1945.” Today Celan functions for thinkers such as Otto Pöggeler, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, and Hans-Georg Gadamer—each of whom has devoted at least one book to Celan’s work—much as Hölderlin functioned for the late Heidegger.

Celan’s first major volume of poems, Mohn und Gedächtnis, published in 1952, brought him instant recognition and a measure of fame. A new volume of poems followed roughly every three years until his death by drowning in April 1970. In the early 1960s, midway through his writing career, a poetic change or “Wende” took place, inscribed in the title of the 1967 volume Atemwende and lasting to the posthumous volumes. His poems, which had always been highly complex but rather lush in a near-surrealistic way, were pared down, the syntax growing tighter and more spiny, his trademark neologisms and telescoping of words increasing, with the overall composition of the work becoming more serial in nature.

In this translation of that great work, noted poet and translator Pierre Joris has attempted to convey the serial, cyclical aspect of Celan’s writing, while demonstrating the immense power of the linguistic experiments that have become Paul Celan’s trademark.

Lightduress

Paul Celan

Translated from the German with an Introduction by Pierre Joris

A Bilingual Edition

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Book translation winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation

The last volume of poems connected with what Paul Celan described as “die Wende” (“the turn”) Lightduress was written between June and December in 1967, and appeared approximately three months after the poet’s suicide in 1970. 1967, the year in which he composed most of this book, had been a difficult year for Celan, beginning with Claire Goll, the widow of poet Yvan Goll, wrongly accusing him of plagiarizing her husband’s poetry. Five days later, Celan attempted suicide with a knife aimed at his heart. From mid-February until mid-October he was interned at the Saint-Anne psychiatric hospital, and only in late April was allowed to travel.

In the same month he and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange, after difficult discussions, concluded that a separation was necessary, and Celan started to look for an apartment in Paris. During this same period, on the other hand, Celan wrote more than half of the poems of Threadsuns and a major part of this volume, and in July he traveled to Germany, leacturing at the University of Freiburg-im-Brisgau to a large audience that included the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

By October, Breathturn began to receive its first positive reviews and Celan moved in to a small apartment in the 5th arrondissement.

This long-awaited translation by the noted poet and translator Pierre Joris, represents, along with Breathturn and Threadsuns (both also available from Green Integer) the mature expression of one of the most important poets of the 20th century.

Out of Print

Romanian Poems

Paul Celan

Translated from the Romanian with an Introduction by Julian Semilian and San Agalidi

A Bilingual Edition

Paul Celan was a poet of many layers, and until recently readers for English could only imagine his power and complexity. Recent translations of Celan by Pierre Joris, John Felstiner and others, however, have revealed this master's poetic achievement to the english language reading audience. In this book, English language readers can now know the Romanian works of Celan.
        Poet and critic Andrei Codrescu wrote of this volume:"Paul Celan...has become the raw material of so much critical processing, it has become difficult to read him without hearing the voices of the commentators. The continual buzzing go the interpretive chorus around Celan's poetry has nearly added another layer of pain to work that is already written at the synapses of raw nerves. I say 'nearly' because happily there is Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi, who translate the poetry as if there are only two entities in the room: Psyche and Echo. Celan would have been proud to be thus refreshed."

Threadsuns

Paul Celan

Translated from the German with an Introduction by Pierre Joris

A Bilingual Edition

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Born in Czernowitz—the capital of the Bukovina (now part of the Ukraine and Rumania)—in 1920, Paul Celan is now recognized as one of the great poets of the 20th century. Threadsuns, originally published as Fadensonnen in 1968, two years before Celan's suicide by drowning, continues Green Integer's commitment to publish the last great works of Celan as translated by the noted poet and critic Pierre Joris.

One of Paul Celan's most important books of poems, Threadsuns follows the Green Integer press publication of Breathturn and Lightduress, both of which received international critical acclaim with the latter book winning the PEN New York Translation Award. Consisting of 105 poems, arranged in five cycles, Threadsuns was composed between September 1965 and June 1967. If Breathturn was the opening gambit of Celan's "turn," the entry into the late work, then Threadsuns—the volume that may have received the least amount of commentary and analysis to date—may be said to be not only an extension or continuation of the previous volume, but the full-blown realization of Celan's late work.

Poet, translator and essayist Pierre Joris is the author of Poasis: Selected Poems 1968-1999 and A Nomand Poetics (essays). With co-editor Jerome Rothenberg, Joris edited the Poems of the Millennium anthologies. He teaches poetry and poetics at SUNY-Albany.