In der Gegend der Louise Bourgeois
Aus dem Haus
wachsen
ihre Kinderarme
Die Händchen
halten ein Kleid
Sie winken ihr zu
In ihrer
Nacktheit
schleppt sie
sich
die Stufen
hinauf
Vergebens
Der Eingang
ist zugemauert
und überwuchert
von Schamhaar
Kein Fischerdorf
Unten sei das Meer
das schöne Meer
schreien die Händler
Menschen
gleiten die Stufen
hinunter
hinunter
in eine grundlose
Tiefe
Ich ein Zuschauer
klammere mich
an das morsche
Geländer
Piazza di Spagna frühmorgens
Die Treppenanlage hinunter hinauf
gestikuliert und filmt der tote Buñuel
Erschrocken fast die monströse
Zirkusreiterin die das Geräusch
der Schüsse für ihren Einsatz hält
Zögernd greift sie nach einem
der Kirchturmhelme und setzt ihn
sich auf
Aufs Pferd mit ihr schreit Buñuel
Als Tod ist sie nicht glaubhaft
Stopp
Die wenigen Touristen bleiben stehen
nada nothing da war nichts rien du tout
Sie gehen weiter
© Verlag Königshausen & Newmann GmbH, Würzburg 2013.
Auszug aus >Blinder Übergang<
Gisela Hemau
Listen to the poems read in the original German by the poet:
I was introduced to Gisela Hemau’s poetry by a mutual friend. I was immediately struck by the spareness and absolute rightness of her language, and also amazed that I had never heard of her work. I began to translate a few poems and sent her an email asking if she would like to see what I was doing. So began what has become an immensely helpful interchange.
Gisela is an extremely painstaking writer and an equally painstaking reader of my translations. She has led me to reconsider any number of words, phrases, rhythms, line breaks; at the same time, she has accepted my decisions not to make certain changes. Her style is often surrealistic—sometimes in a playful way, sometimes as a means of treating psychological issues from a certain distance. I have tried to preserve the strangeness of her diction and imagery.
Gisela is an extremely painstaking writer and an equally painstaking reader of my translations. She has led me to reconsider any number of words, phrases, rhythms, line breaks; at the same time, she has accepted my decisions not to make certain changes. Her style is often surrealistic—sometimes in a playful way, sometimes as a means of treating psychological issues from a certain distance. I have tried to preserve the strangeness of her diction and imagery.
Gisela Hemau was born in 1938 and lives in Bonn. She studied German and English literature in Mainz, Wurzburg, and Munich, and worked for a time as a reader of radio plays for West German Radio. Blinder Übergang (Blind Passage, 2013) is her sixth volume of poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. A small group of English translations by Esther Elstun appeared in 2008, but Hemau is not well known to English readers. Elstun calls Hemau’s poetry “remarkable for its musicality and the boldness of its imagery.”
Sara Edinger became interested in the German language and German literature as an undergraduate at Stanford. After Stanford, she obtained an M.A. (and A.B.D.) in literature, but for practical reasons she spent most of her working life in information technology. In retirement, she returned to the study of German and began making translations, mostly of poetry. Initially, she saw her translations as a way of understanding the poems more completely; she has since become fascinated by the process of solving translation problems. As a translator, she has published English versions of three poems by the German poet Elke Erb in Asymptote (April 2014) and another by Elke Erb in Passager (this poem was also published on Poetry Daily). Her translations (again from the German) of two poems by Gisela Hemau appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of Field.
