Paul Celan; Romanian Poems

Translated from the German by Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi

Paul Celan… has become the raw material of so much critical processing, it has become difficult to read him without hearing the voices of the commentators. The continual buzzing of the interpretive chorus around Celan’s poetry has nearly added another layer of pain to work that is already written at the synapses of raw nerves. I say “nearly,” because happily there is Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi, who translate the poetry as if there are only two entities in the room: Psyche and Echo. Celan would have been proud to be thus refreshed.

— Poet/critic Andrei Codrescu on Romanian Poems

Romanian poet Paul Celan (1920–1970) is celebrated for his late works in German: Breathturn (1967), Threadsuns (1968), and Lightduress (1970, all published by Green Integer). Less known are his writings in Romanian, written before his arrival in Vienna in 1947. The famously melancholic poet characterizes these early years as being touched with euphoria.