David Harsent and George Szirtes are two contemporary voices of English poetry of great influence. Both have won multiple awards (Harsent and Szirtes are winners of the prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize) and published numerous lyric and poetry volumes.
David Harsent has published eleven collections of poetry as well as crime novels and TV series (e.g. Midsomer Murders). In Songs from the Same Earth, he creates mysterious image sequences and vivid speech to tell us about a woman on the edge of a mental breakdown. George Szirtes came to London as a child refugee from Budapest. He published 18 poetry collections, children's books and award-winning translations from Hungarian. In The Burning of the Books, Szirtes captures the atmosphere of emerging fascism in the city of Vienna in the 1930s.
German audience will now have a chance to witness the British authors as their work has been translated and will be presented at Lyrik Kabinett München in collections of Allitera-Verlag.
A room of mouths mouthing your name, you said;
then a cage of glass where your image became yourself;then everything clear of colour, clear of sound:
a place where your eyes slowly whitened as you watched.____________________________
Ein Raum von Mündern, die deinen Namen formen, sagtest du;
dann ein Käfig aus Glas, wo dein Bild zu dir selbst gerann.Dann alles frei von Farbe, frei von Klang:
ein Ort, wo deine Augen langsam weiß wurden im Schauen.
David Harsent, Songs from the Same Earth / Lieder von derselben Erde. Translation: Ludwig Steinherr, Allitera 2019.
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To dream of books is to dream of men and to dream of men
Is to dream of God, of sages burning in God’s holy fire,
Of Pentecostal flames above the mouths of apostles,
Of a live coal placed on the lips of the prophet, of a wholesale
Burning of books, such as here, here on this very street
[...]____________________________
Traum von Büchern ist Traum von Menschen, und Traum
von Menschen
Ist Traum von Gott, von Weisen, die brennen in
Gottes heiligem Feuer,
Von pfingstlichen Flammen über Apostelmündern,
Von glühender Kohle auf Prophetenlippen, von
Bücherverbrennung en gros
So wie hier, hier - auf eben dieser Straße.
[…]
George Szirtes, The Burning of the Books / Bücherverbrennung. Translation: Ludwig Steinherr, Allitera 2019.