Breathturn into Timestead

from ‘Microliths’

161

Remembering
also premembering, prethinking and storing of what could be

Yeats: I certainly owe more to that poet than to Fr. surreal.

Strange. In front of a candle
Now I tried to render visible the grain of sand (Buber, Chass. — //Nibelungens[on]g) that had to have been sunk into me too at some time.
Mother, candles, sabbath
But the poem lead me out of this idea, across to a new level with this idea

162

162.1

It is part of poetry’s essential features that it releases the poet, its crown witness and confidant, from their shared knowledge once it has taken on form. (If it were different, there would barely be a poet who could take on the responsibility of having written more than one poem.)

162.2

—Poetry as event
Event = truth (“unhiddenness,” worked, fought for unhiddeness)
Poetry as risk
Creation = /poweractivity /Gewalttätigkeit (Heidegger)
Truth ≠ accuracy (i: consistency)

–in each first word of a poem the whole of language gathers itself —
–handiwork: hand / think through connections
such as “hand and heart”
handiwork — heartwork

Beginning: “Poetry as handiwork”? The handmade crafting of poetry?

About ‘Microliths’at Jacket2 Magazine
About ‘Microliths’ at Poetry Foundation.

I would like to thank Pierre Joris for his translation of Microliths. These translations are © Pierre Joris

Once

Once
I heard him
he was washing the world,
unseen, nightlong, real.

One and infinite,
annihilated,
ied.

Light was. Salvation.

From Fathomsuns and Benighted by Paul Celan (translated by Ian Fairley for Carcanet Books) (1991)

Paul Celan related texts by Pierre Joris

Threadsuns by Paul Celan translated by Pierre Joris

The Meridian

Final Version—Drafts—Materials (2011) PAUL CELAN EDITED BY BERNHARD BÖSCHENSTEIN AND HEINO SCHMULL TRANSLATED BY PIERRE JORIS SERIES: MERIDIAN: CROSSING AESTHETICS