A dazzling selection of more than one hundred poems that trace the development of Durs Grünbein’s work over the past two decades.
Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Grünbein is the most significant and successful poet of his generation in Germany. Since 1988, when the then-twenty-five-year-old burst onto the scene with his poetry collection Grauzone morgens—a mordant reckoning with the East Germany he grew up in—Grünbein has published more than thirty books of poetry and prose, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
In 2005 the volume Ashes for Breakfast introduced Grünbein to English-language readers for the first time by sampling poetry from his first four collections. Psyche Running picks up where that volume left off and offers a selection of poems from his nine subsequent collections, which shows how Grünbein has developed from his ironic take on the classical into an elegiac exploration of history through dream fragments and poems with a haunting existential unease.
Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Grünbein is the most significant and successful poet of his generation in Germany. Since 1988, when the then-twenty-five-year-old burst onto the scene with his poetry collection Grauzone morgens—a mordant reckoning with the East Germany he grew up in—Grünbein has published more than thirty books of poetry and prose, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
In 2005 the volume Ashes for Breakfast introduced Grünbein to English-language readers for the first time by sampling poetry from his first four collections. Psyche Running picks up where that volume left off and offers a selection of poems from his nine subsequent collections, which shows how Grünbein has developed from his ironic take on the classical into an elegiac exploration of history through dream fragments and poems with a haunting existential unease.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Configured Night
From: Der Misanthrop auf Capri: Historien / Gedichte (2005)
The Misanthrope on Capri: Histories / Poems
The Misanthrope on Capri
A Colonist in Octodurus
Julia Livilla
Fantasy on the Public Lavatories
“Siv me amas”
Epiphany with Centaurs
Active
From: Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005)
Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City
From: Strophen für übermorgen (2007)
Verses for the Day after Tomorrow
Childhood in the Diorama
Née Wachtel
What I am
Crossing the Alps
The Astronomer
Exaltations in Sleep
Echo will now say a word or two
Mimosa
From: Aroma: ein römisches Zeichenbuch (2010)
Aroma: A Roman Sketchbook
Aroma
XIII (Little Sun Song)
XIV (The Accident)
XXIII (Lyceum)
XLIX (Swarms of Starlings)
Torso of Polyphemus
Behind Trajan’s Market
Roman Houses
Agave
From: Koloss im Nebel (2013)
Colossus in the Mist
Interior with Owl I
Teapot with Persimmon Fruit
Dragonflies in Dahomey
Inspector Kobold
Calypso Deep
When no Credo is Left
Island without Sirens
Turkish Baths
Interior with Owl II
From: Cyrano oder Die Rückkehr vom Mond (2014).
Cyrano or the Journey back from the Moon
Riccioli
Carnet
Phocylides
Ibn Firnas
Oenopides
Descartes
Rabbi Levi
Endymion
Hertz
Tacchini
Pontormo
From: Die Jahre im Zoo. Ein Kaleidoskop (2015)
The Zoo Years. A Kaleidoscope
The Doctrine of Photography
From: Zündkerzen (2017)
Sparkplugs
From a Book of Weaknesses
Hotel Panama
Psyche Running
Décolleté
Certain Spots
Artichokes
Transit
The Aviary of Painting
The Stillness torn apart at noon
Vacancies
Pine Copse
On learning old Vocabulary
Dangerous Absences
Seven Pines
Conferencier
Inner Emptiness
Kiosk by the Sea
Misanthropic Humanist
Under the Surface
The Projector
Asked what it is
From: Äquidistanz (2022)
Equidistance
Not the Woodpecker
Expressionist Film
East-West-Axis
Schlachtensee
Dreilinden
Contemplation, clear as tears
In Cold Arms of Water
Lobus frontalis
23rd August 1939
Flea Market
1962
Hypothesis
Lumière
Quantum Foam
Theory of Signs
Equidistance
Footnote to Myself
From: Der Misanthrop auf Capri: Historien / Gedichte (2005)
The Misanthrope on Capri: Histories / Poems
The Misanthrope on Capri
A Colonist in Octodurus
Julia Livilla
Fantasy on the Public Lavatories
“Siv me amas”
Epiphany with Centaurs
Active
From: Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005)
Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City
From: Strophen für übermorgen (2007)
Verses for the Day after Tomorrow
Childhood in the Diorama
Née Wachtel
What I am
Crossing the Alps
The Astronomer
Exaltations in Sleep
Echo will now say a word or two
Mimosa
From: Aroma: ein römisches Zeichenbuch (2010)
Aroma: A Roman Sketchbook
Aroma
XIII (Little Sun Song)
XIV (The Accident)
XXIII (Lyceum)
XLIX (Swarms of Starlings)
Torso of Polyphemus
Behind Trajan’s Market
Roman Houses
Agave
From: Koloss im Nebel (2013)
Colossus in the Mist
Interior with Owl I
Teapot with Persimmon Fruit
Dragonflies in Dahomey
Inspector Kobold
Calypso Deep
When no Credo is Left
Island without Sirens
Turkish Baths
Interior with Owl II
From: Cyrano oder Die Rückkehr vom Mond (2014).
Cyrano or the Journey back from the Moon
Riccioli
Carnet
Phocylides
Ibn Firnas
Oenopides
Descartes
Rabbi Levi
Endymion
Hertz
Tacchini
Pontormo
From: Die Jahre im Zoo. Ein Kaleidoskop (2015)
The Zoo Years. A Kaleidoscope
The Doctrine of Photography
From: Zündkerzen (2017)
Sparkplugs
From a Book of Weaknesses
Hotel Panama
Psyche Running
Décolleté
Certain Spots
Artichokes
Transit
The Aviary of Painting
The Stillness torn apart at noon
Vacancies
Pine Copse
On learning old Vocabulary
Dangerous Absences
Seven Pines
Conferencier
Inner Emptiness
Kiosk by the Sea
Misanthropic Humanist
Under the Surface
The Projector
Asked what it is
From: Äquidistanz (2022)
Equidistance
Not the Woodpecker
Expressionist Film
East-West-Axis
Schlachtensee
Dreilinden
Contemplation, clear as tears
In Cold Arms of Water
Lobus frontalis
23rd August 1939
Flea Market
1962
Hypothesis
Lumière
Quantum Foam
Theory of Signs
Equidistance
Footnote to Myself