Our twice-yearly daylight savings holiday, in which we faithfully, collectively adjust our clocks, is purely human tampering with the calendar. Yet, it is a practice that is embedded in nature’s principles, even as we exact more sunlight for ourselves in an over-organized, technological world. Mirroring this dichotomy, Michael Krüger brings us The Seasonal Time Change, a collection of poems where an exacting eye is cast on nature. The poet’s perspective is observant, stringent, and very human, bringing both intellect and emotion to the page. Translated by Joseph Given, the verses are in turn scrutinizing, wistful of the brutality of nature, and rejoicing in the simple wonder of life.
Bearing witness to Krüger’s interactions with renowned poets and artists through his time as director of Hanser publishing house, proximity and relationships are ongoing themes in this volume. Together, the poems remind us of our own mortality and of the finiteness of nature, but also our need for celebration even—perhaps especially—in times of darkness.
Bearing witness to Krüger’s interactions with renowned poets and artists through his time as director of Hanser publishing house, proximity and relationships are ongoing themes in this volume. Together, the poems remind us of our own mortality and of the finiteness of nature, but also our need for celebration even—perhaps especially—in times of darkness.
Reviews
Table of Contents
I.
My Desk in Allmanshausen
Not a Haiku
Postcard, May 2012
Three Winds, Pentecost
May
Near Münsing
Long Conversation
Crow-Eater
I Cannot Divine What it Meaneth
Wooden House
Happiness
Walk in the Woods
A Friend
Twilight
The Last Day of August
The Death of the Birch, 2011
Old Man under an Apple Tree
Nights on the Terrace
Photo Album
Memory from School
Class Reunion
Poem
Peripheral Symptoms of War
II.
In the Negev
Hotel Malibran, Venice
Hotel Near Erfurt
Message, 2012
Hotel Europa
Enlightenment
Flight to Istanbul
Harry Mulisch
Hotel Il Patriarca
Shame
After the Rain
Before the Storm
Street Scene in a Foreign City
Russian Cash
Four Lines for Lalla
Cinnamon
On Seagulls
Countryside Cafe
National Museum in Calcutta
India—Seven Postcards
Programme Poetry
The Hedgehog
How Poems Happen
Sleepless
Copyright
III.
Old Wooden House
A Poet
(Untitled)
In the Uckermark
Lentils in New York
Almost Nothing
Lost Time
Written from the Heart
Istanbul Revisited
Old Well
Diel
Walking, Slightly Moved
Czeslaw, Milosz
Translating
Outdated
What Still Has to be Done!
Antonio Tabucchi is Dead
Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin
Nicolas Born
Claude Simon
A Reminder
Whodunnit?
A Mirror
Tidying Up
In the Shed
IV.
Snow
New Year, 2012
New Year
Winter
Wretched Apples in February
Snow Dreamer
Dreamings
Palm Sunday, 2012
Seedlings
Beach Cafe
Short Trip
Summerhouse at Easter
The Current State of Affairs, 2012
At the Lake
Near Boston, at the Sea
Expecting Rain
Autumn
At the Baltic Sea, Very Early
Chiusi, Terre di Siena
The Spider and I
The Blackbird
Early Sun in the South
Cutting Grass
End of the Summer
Reverie
Still Pool
Clearing
Notes
My Desk in Allmanshausen
Not a Haiku
Postcard, May 2012
Three Winds, Pentecost
May
Near Münsing
Long Conversation
Crow-Eater
I Cannot Divine What it Meaneth
Wooden House
Happiness
Walk in the Woods
A Friend
Twilight
The Last Day of August
The Death of the Birch, 2011
Old Man under an Apple Tree
Nights on the Terrace
Photo Album
Memory from School
Class Reunion
Poem
Peripheral Symptoms of War
II.
In the Negev
Hotel Malibran, Venice
Hotel Near Erfurt
Message, 2012
Hotel Europa
Enlightenment
Flight to Istanbul
Harry Mulisch
Hotel Il Patriarca
Shame
After the Rain
Before the Storm
Street Scene in a Foreign City
Russian Cash
Four Lines for Lalla
Cinnamon
On Seagulls
Countryside Cafe
National Museum in Calcutta
India—Seven Postcards
Programme Poetry
The Hedgehog
How Poems Happen
Sleepless
Copyright
III.
Old Wooden House
A Poet
(Untitled)
In the Uckermark
Lentils in New York
Almost Nothing
Lost Time
Written from the Heart
Istanbul Revisited
Old Well
Diel
Walking, Slightly Moved
Czeslaw, Milosz
Translating
Outdated
What Still Has to be Done!
Antonio Tabucchi is Dead
Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin
Nicolas Born
Claude Simon
A Reminder
Whodunnit?
A Mirror
Tidying Up
In the Shed
IV.
Snow
New Year, 2012
New Year
Winter
Wretched Apples in February
Snow Dreamer
Dreamings
Palm Sunday, 2012
Seedlings
Beach Cafe
Short Trip
Summerhouse at Easter
The Current State of Affairs, 2012
At the Lake
Near Boston, at the Sea
Expecting Rain
Autumn
At the Baltic Sea, Very Early
Chiusi, Terre di Siena
The Spider and I
The Blackbird
Early Sun in the South
Cutting Grass
End of the Summer
Reverie
Still Pool
Clearing
Notes