(I testi sono tratti da: Ferruccio Masini, Per le cinque dita (1958-1980), Milano, All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, "Acquario", 1986)

Nulla

Metti accanto al fiore la parola nulla
metti accanto a tutte le cose la parola nulla
mettila accanto all'amore
mettila accanto all'ira della giustizia
all'orgoglio della fame ai grandi libri della saggezza
come il vuoto del silenzio che ammorza la memoria
come il limite dell'anticipazione
questo nulla che è soltanto nulla
e non è neppure il tuo nulla - è il nulla

Annoda ai labirinti della libidine e del sogno
questo filo di seta che attraversa i polsi
questa definizione della vita che brucia l'epilogo della nascita
e la corona dei re non avrà più diademi
perché il nulla cancella tutta la scrittura della pagina
Hai dato il tuo corpo ai demoni
- Mangiatevi - hai detto - ma su questa giostra -
e hai chiamato nella tua mente come in una rocca
i cortigiani del passato sui bianchi cavalli i poeti
che dissetano l'ozio stillando il miele delle favole
le voci familiari dell'infanzia le musiche ebbre della maturità
le penombre gelose e dolci dell'amore la malinconia
questo piacere d'essere uomo come piacere d'essere mare
o riva di mare o autunno

Ma metti accanto a questa lingua eloquente la parola nulla
mettila nelle radici nella duplice pausa del respiro
nell'essenza della follia nello stupore del possesso
nel fondamento che non è fondamento
nella morte che è carnevale o sarcasmo o pietà
ma non ancora il nulla

Metti quest'ombra nel chiarore della spiga
nella pupilla degli adolescenti nella delizia del frutto
in tutte le cose vive perché si consumino
come il fuoco salino sull'orlo delle mareggiate
tu uomo abitato dal nulla
ti stringi alla tua fatica come al morso del vento dissennato
gloria di cenere che si solleva

Se attenti a tutte le cose con la parola nulla
non varrà neppure che ti ubriachi di lotta
non varrà neppure che tu provochi contro di te lo spasimo delle generazioni

- questo flusso e riflusso
non è che uno stormo d'ali selvagge sopra un naufragio
un corteo nuziale accecato dalla putrescenza
carne scavata dal nulla come un paese bianco dalla sera

E così scrivi senza disgusto
tu che cresci sul nulla come la piccola piaga sulle labbra
accanto a tutte le cose la parola nulla

***

Canzone dei piccoli errori

I

Non commettere piccoli errori
esili fili di candela tra le pareti del mondo
e il cielo senza scampo
quando - se c'è mai stato un quando -
il silenzio premeva sulla parola
il nervo della parola vibrava fino allo spasimo
e tu non sapevi
se bisognava aguzzare lo sguardo
per cercare dei bersagli o cercare
nei bersagli un senso
Non commettere piccoli errori
come troncare la spiga secca e senza grano
come chiudere le porte del banchetto nuziale
per chiedere se l'amore stia in altro
se la gioia è in altro
Non commettere piccoli errori
perché basterà una riga in meno una sillaba
cancellata ad accusarti
basterà che uno dei giudici s'appisoli
perché tu sia condannato

II

I piccoli errori sonnecchiano nelle cantine
sono ubriachi di vino nuovo
o anche solo atratti dagli scalini di pietra
dall'interminabile arazzo del salnitro
Piccoli con il piede vacillante
eppure avidi di crescere di diventare grandi errori
di farsi chiamare errores dagli avventurieri
di farsi chiamare barche
per approdare non so dove non so in quali
regesti di antichi errori
Compunti con una smorfia di trionfo
come chierichetti felici di aver desiderato
senza peccare un desiderio d'innocenza
Così sulle panche delle chiese mentre qualcuno
smoccola i ceri sui candelabri di ferro
si battono il petto mormorando
che tenteranno ancora
Per un piccolo errore - amici -
mi sono aperto le vene una sera

***

Quando

Quando verrà il giorno
in cui sarà tanta la nostra ansia di vivere
di fiorire sulla pietra
che vorremo morire?
Lo sguardo prigioniero nel tenue cristallo di rocca
la lancia acuminata nel vivo dei capelli
l'ago invisibile nella lingua dove invano
chi dice sogno dice amore
Non potremo che stringerci piano nella nebbia
con il sangue che monta in noi
fino alla gola della notte
percorsa dagli zoccoli ammalata
dal fruscio delle solitudini
Quando verrà il giorno
in cui sarà tanta la nostra beatitudine umana
da ridere nel fiotto vivo dell'arcipelago
come scaglie abbaglianti
trascinate dalla risacca fino alla sete delle rive?
Noi semplici forme che una mano
chiama dal fango della creazione
a danzare nell'ora breve

Quando verrà il giorno
in cui io e tu ci ritroveremo
guardando vacillare la stella
tra l'arco della notte e il mare
mescolati nella primavera dell'anno
con la bocca perfetta e la carne
intagliata da un dio ignoto?
Dimenticheremo allora
la vuota eternità dove vivemmo - noi effimeri -
senza conoscerci e ci ridesteremo
presso una casa di vecchie pietre
con il clamore delle foglie
insonne dei nostri rami
per toccare di là dalla scorza
per entro la fibra dura
le nostre carni dolci

***

Ma senza un grido

Ma senza un grido
senza che la tua mano parli
portandoti piano alla bocca la brocca d'acqua
la mattina quando il cielo si screpola
e dal varco della notte esce la tua barca
Ti pieghi fino a toccare il calcagno
buono per non correre
e sciogli le ninfee dal grembo dello stagno
con gli insetti mansueti e la strana
immobilità delle rane
Perché questo è da farsi ora che si abbrevia
il mare insonne della vita e l'arcipelago
si curva come un arcobaleno
quest'incoronazione tacita d'un solitario
che ha molte rovine sotto di sé
e crescite e vertigine di forme

***

Sonatina dell’eterno ritorno

I

Qui mi ritrovo dopo diecimila anni
tra questa tela di ragno e il tuo sorriso intatto
senza poter dare alla febbre un nome
senza poter essere altro da quel che sono
con la roulette sul segno sbagliato
con il nero infaticabile che mulina la mia idiota
allegria
     mentre la lunga teoria dei fanali
     ripete le sue false indicazioni per una falsa mèta
     mentre lo scarafaggio sale guardingo la parete
     sazio di troppe morti

Qui mi ritrovo spennato a dovere con l’ala sanguinolenta
a segnare con l’indice la stessa parola
nel libro avaro dell’anno
     che ho dissotterrato dai miei monologhi
     tra questa tela di ragno e il tuo sorriso intatto

II

     Qui mi ritrovi dopo diecimila anni
     ancora a guardare l’inverno nero delle falci
     le ramaglie feroci nella foresta di Birnam
     tra il fumo aspro del ginepro e la fonda
     bocca della carbonaia
     Tranquillo eppure ingordo di morte
     assetato di nomi vani qui a guardare
     il volo dell’ultimo uccello
Presto coleranno le resine e le ferite
grideranno con tutti gl’incendi splendidi
e la notte morderà le stelle alla tua cintura
Avvicinati alla mia tortura
     Gli sfibrati paesi nascono ancora una volta
     non hanno suono ma tu déstalo
     con le piogge nude con la melodia dell’ulivo
     sotto le torri saracene tra l’erba alta
Qui non sono vinte
neppure le ombre dei vivi
Perché mi guardi come un vecchio convalescente?
Sono forse guarito?

***

Un uomo

Attenti al corno della luna
alla doppia melodia del sangue
una voce che va e viene
un silenzio che s’inarca
carico d’illusioni e di morte
un uomo

Attenti al minotauro
polvere viola sulle palpebre
tutto è così vicino al compimento
ma è solo una parodia
un capolavoro che nasce come negazione di sé
un uomo

***

Corona

(da Paul Celan)

Dalla mia mano l'autunno divora la sua foglia: noi siamo amici.
Sgusciamo il tempo dalle noci e gl'insegnamo a andare:
il tempo torna indietro nel guscio.

Nello specchio è domenica,
nel sogno si fanno sonni,
la bocca dice vero.

Il mio occhio scende al sesso dell'amata:
ci sogguardiamo,
ci diciamo scuro,
ci amiamo come papavero e memoria,
dormiamo come vino nelle conchiglie,
come il mare nel barbaglio di sangue della luna.

Ci teniamo abbracciati alla finestra, guardano verso di noi dalla strada:

è tempo che si sappia!
E' tempo che la pietra acconsenta a fiorire,
che l'inquietudine batta un cuore.
E' tempo che sia tempo.

E' tempo.

*

Corona
(da Mohn und Gedächtnis)

Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.

Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Traum wird geschlafen,
der mund redet wahr.

Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Geschlecht der Geliebten:
wir sehen uns an,
wir sagen uns Dunkles,
wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,
wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,
wie das Meer im Blutstrahl des Mondes.

Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der Straße:

es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!
Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,
daß der Unrast ein Herz schlägt.
Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.

Es ist Zeit.

*

Nota di Gianluca Pulsoni

Ferruccio Masini è tra i più grandi, dimenticati, importanti autori che abbiamo avuto. Uno della schiera degli irregolari, né poeta, né filosofo, né germanista, né pittore, né teatrante (tra gli ultimi riconoscimenti, la presidenza del centro di Pontedera prima di Grotowski)… eppure più della somma di tutte queste “pratiche” messe assieme. A lui dobbiamo il miglior Nietzsche in lingua italica: le sue versioni dal filosofo tedesco non hanno nulla di meno rispetto a quelle, per esempio, di un Klossowski, tanto per citare una eminente figura che ha svolto altrove attività speculari. E a lui, inoltre, dobbiamo tutto un lavoro segreto sull’edizione Adelphi delle opere del filosofo tedesco, non secondario e in buona parte autonomo, nel rispetto della linea direttiva di Colli (ciò è documentato molto bene in un piccolo annuario d’arte, ‘a camàsce VII, del 2007, dove è uscita la trascrizione di una intervista che Masini ha dato a radio3, pochi anni prima della prematura morte).

E a lui, ancora, dobbiamo il più bel saggio italiano, assieme a Dopo Nietzsche, sul filosofo tedesco: Lo Scriba del Caos (Bologna, 1978), vergognosamente ancora non ristampato. E poi tutto il lavoro su Benn, un modello di critica “inventiva” impareggiabile… la speculazione filosofica sulla letteratura, una ripresa dell’esercizio di pensiero aforistico, il lavoro sul “negativo”, culminato nei ragionamenti su Kafka… e poi la vicinanza al pensiero zen, un approccio alla cultura da eretico marxista… l’insegnamento straordinario a Siena… la pittura. E la poesia. La poesia culminata come lettera privata.

Ho personalmente molto amato Per le cinque dita, e tutta la sua ossessione-variazione sul tema della mano (l’alterità, la riduzione ad un uno-tutto, un uno “plurale”), già presente in opere come La Mano Tronca, dove c’è l’ossatura di quella speculazione magnifica, che inviterei tutti a leggere, sul tema dell’ avventura (una delle poche cose ristampate da poco, per la coraggiosa “Ananke” di Torino, La filosofia dell'avventura, a cura di Marco Vozza, che firma poi una bella post-fazione). Credo poi che in questa silloge poetica ci siano altre cose magnifiche, componimenti come Un Uomo e Sonatina per l'eterno ritorno dove c’è un verso bellissimo, coltissimo, che rimanda proprio a questa condizione intermittente e permanente di “impiccato alla vita” (e non so perché, ma forse per la molta prosasticità che ci ho visto, mi viene in mente ora il nome di Pagnanelli, e una sua poesia - bellissima, bellissima poesia - che un giorno, per caso, sentii leggere dalla voce di Danni Antonello, una poesia che iniziava con un definitivo “Ne varietur…”)… “Tra questa tela di ragno e il tuo sorriso intatto”. Ecco, penso che qui ci sia tutta la condizione di una vita umana, una avventura.

Tra un po’ dovrebbe uscire, salvo imprevisiti, una raccolta di poesie, una specie di antologia, dello stesso Masini, a cura di persone, intellettuali, che gli sono stati vicini e che ne hanno davvero capito l’opera. Spero anch’io, in qualche modo, nel prossimo futuro, di dare un contributo scritto, di riflessione, sull’opera di questo grande autore, infinitamente più vivo (assieme a gente come Bazlen, come lo stesso Pagnanelli e pochi altri) di molti viventi di oggi, morti.

*

Passons rapidement sur sa jeunesse et arrivons en 1942. Ses parents, qui avaient refusé de se cacher sont envoyés en déportation en Ukraine. (maintenant c'est la Transnistrie,pour les courageux qui ont envie de se démonter la tête, jetez un oeil ici. Maintenant je propose qu'on arrête avec la géographie ) Son père meurt du Typhus et sa mère est certainement exécutée. Paul Celan est envoyé dans un camp de travail.

A la fin de la guerre, il part pour Bucarest, et deviendra lecteur et traducteur russe-roumain pour les éditions Cartea Rusa (Le Livre Russe). Il traduira, entre autres, Tchekhov.

En 1947, il publie ses premiers poèmes, puis il part six mois pour Vienne.

En juillet 1948, il part pour Paris, via Innsbrück. La revue Plan publie dix-sept de ses poèmes, repris dans le recueil Der Sand aus den Urnen (Le Sable des urnes) dont Celan interdira la diffusion.

Il s'inscrit en licence d'allemand à la Sorbonne en 1949. Traduction de Cocteau et d'Apollinaire.

1952 : Mariage avec Gisèle de Lestrange,  et parution du recueil Mohn und Gedächtnis (Pavot et mémoire)

Traduction de Cioran et de Picasso en 1955. Cette année là paraît à Stuttgart son recueil Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (De seuil en seuil). Il obtient la nationalité française.

1956 : traduit en allemand le commentaire du film Nuit et Brouillard.

1960 : traduit la Jeune Parque, de Valéry. Claire Goll, la veuve d'Yvan Goll, dont Celan avait traduit les poèmes en allemand à la demande de ce dernier l'accuse d'avoir plagié l'oeuvre de son mari. Elle lance une campagne de diffamation contre Paul Celan.

1962 : Travaille pendant un mois comme traducteur au Bureau International du Travail, à Genève.

1967 :  Grave crise psychique au début de l'année qui le conduira à effectuer un séjour en hôpital psychatrique. Paul Celan quitte son domicile et s'installe seul dans un appartement de la rue Tournefort (V°). Traduit vingt-et-un sonnets de Shakespeare.  Rencontre Heidegger.

1969 : Traduction de Rimbaud, Michaux, Mandelstam. Fait un séjour en Israël, invité par l'association des écrivains  Israëlites.

1970 : Fin avril, Celan se donne la mort en se jetant dans la Seine, sans doute du pont Mirabeau.  Son corps est retrouvé le 1er mai.
Il est enterré au cimetière de Thiais le 12.

La biographie ne comporte pas la liste de toutes ses traductions, ni les dates de parutions de tous ses ouvrages, le but n'étant pas de faire un catalogue détaillé.

Articles sur Paul Celan, son écriture, son oeuvre :

Paul Celan, sur le site Esprit nomade

Paul Celan, sur le site monumenta
Ce site est remarquable, on peut entendre des lectures de ses textes, voir des vidéos d'entretiens, des photos, lire des articles connexes... le tout présenté de manière simple et accessible.

MANDORLA

In the almond--what dwells in the almond?

Nothing.

What dwells in the almond is Nothing.

There it dwells and dwells.

In Nothing--what dwells there? The King.

There the King dwells, the King.

There he dwells and dwells.

Jew's curl, you'll not turn grey.

And your eye--on what does your eye dwell?

On the almond your eye dwells.

Your eye, on Nothing it dwells.

Dwells on the King, to him remains loyal, true.

So it dwells and dwells.

Human curl, you'll not turn grey.

Empty almond, royal-blue.

(Translated by Michael Hamburger)

Shmuel ben Yitzchak's graphic image Schreib dich nicht (Nachlass)--or, Don't write yourself (Deduction)--was completed in 2001. The title is largely taken from the opening line of an untitled poem by Paul Celan. As such, ben Yitzchak's work is an adaptation of Celan's poem.

How does one present the two works together? If they were exhibited in a physical gallery, they might be positioned next to one another. Even then, which one would be placed where? Would the priority of Celan's poem (ben Yitzchak's graphic was "inspired" by the poem) have any implications for their joint exhibition in a physical gallery? Would that mean the poem would be displayed to the left (or top) while the graphic would be displayed to the right (or bottom)?

Of course, in a physical exhibition the original size of ben Yitzchak's (36 by 44 cm) would be a consideration as well. Or maybe the two works might be positioned in different parts of the gallery room--or even different rooms.

Many, though not all, of the possibilities for jointly exhibiting the two works poem and graphic in a physical gallery carry over to their exhibition in a virtual gallery. The virtual gallery cannot reproduce the physical presence of the two works in a physical gallery in which the observers move about while the exhibits do not. However, in the virtual gallery, the exhibits can move about. Shouldn't that open up new possibilities?

Enough questions for now. I've prepared a joint "exhibition" of Paul Celan's poem and Shmuel ben Yitzchak's graphic in the Power Point (I know I know) shows below. If you read German try that one first, and if not, go directly to the English version that features John Felstiner's English translation.
Celan-ben Yitzchak Exhibition (in German)

Celan-ben Yitzchak Exhibition (in English)

NOTE: Both the German text of Celan's poem and John Felstiner's translation are taken from Michael Hofmann, ed., Twentieth-Century German Poetry: An Anthology (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

"Une langue au nord de l’avenir" ... est en effet une phrase magnifique mais le problème est que Paul Celan ne l'a pas vraiment écrite et que laure Adler ne relève même pas. Le texte exact est: "Dans les fleuves, au nord de l'avenir, je ne jette le filet qu'avec hésitation".

IN DEN FLÜßEN nördlich der Zukunft
werf ich das Netz aus, das du
zögernd beschwerst
mit von Steinen geschriebenen
Schatten.

Vous me connaissez, j'ai aussitôt envoyé un petit mot à GS. pour attirer son attention sur ce petit lapsus littéraire. Je n'attendais évidemment pas de réponse et pof, contre toute attente, hier, par retour de courrier, un mot charmant dans ma boite disant mea culpa. Vraiment sympa pour ce grand professeur d'université de répondre gentiment comme ça à l'inconnu que je suis. Sur une super belle vieille machine à écrire en plus.

Zur Verfollständigung meiner Sammlung fehlt natürlich noch die audiovisuelle Interpretation des Gedichtes "Die Todesfuge" von Paul Celan.

Inhalt

1944 - Ein deutscher KZ-Aufseher experimentiert an jüdischen Gefangen und überwacht die Aushebung ihres eigenen Grabes. Am selben Tag schreibt er einen Brief an seine Geliebte.

Erläuterungen

Der Arbeitsauftrag lautete, das Gedicht Die Todesfuge von Paul Celan auf eine beliebige Art und Weise zu interpretieren. Zum Verständnis des Kurzfilms sei dieses Gedicht auch empfohlene Lektüre ;-)

Mein Team hat sich - naheliegenderweise - für eine filmische Interpretation entschieden. Das Ergebnis könnt ihr oben herunterladen. Vielleicht erkennt ihr das ein oder andere Motiv wieder. Bei Bedarf kann ich auch Auszüge aus unserem damals angefertigten Interpretationstext veröffentlichen. Die Drehzeit beläuft sich auf drei Tage, die Nachbearbeitung fand innerhalb zwei Wochen statt.

Zugegebenermaßen haben wir das Gedicht recht frei interpretiert um so etwas wie einen Spannungsbogen zu erzeugen. Gleichzeitig haben wir versucht die abschreckende und verunsichernde Wirkung des Gedichts durch dunkle Bilder und rasche Schnitte beizubehalten.

Screenshots

Download
Todesfuge.wmv (ca. 73 Mbyte)

Поэтому я не люблю весь тот пафос, без которого о Катастрофе не говрят. Потому что достаточно одного стихотворенья. И все. И иди молчать

Dans un mail, ce matin, Muriel évoque Appelfeld, Nelly Sachs, Rose Aulander, la Bucovine et Czernowitz la ville natale de Célan...
Tout à coup la phrase "au nord de l'avenir" me revient en tête, obsédante. Je l'avais entendue à l'époque dans la bouche de George Steiner :

“… je suis à la gare de Francfort entre deux trains. Dans un kiosque, un livre m’intrigue. J’ouvre et - première phrase - je lis: “Une langue au nord de l’avenir”...
J’eus un choc quasi physique et j’ai presque raté mon train. Cette phrase a changé ma vie. J’ai su qu’il y avait là une immensité qui allait entrer dans ma vie. Ce fût ma première rencontre avec l’oeuvre de Paul Celan”.

“Une langue au nord de l’avenir” ... la phrase est magnifique en effet ; et je la comprends d'autant mieux en ce moment que ma langue - et ma vie également - sont quelque part "...au nord de l'avenir"... Le choc existentiel, quasi physique de Steiner eut lieu à gare de Francfort ; J'ai regardé par la fenêtre du train le nom de ma gare : il y avait marqué en grosses lettres Alzheimer.

IN DEN FLÜßEN nördlich der Zukunft

werf ich das Netz aus, das du

zögernd beschwerst

mit von Steinen geschriebenen

Schatten.

J'avais parlé à l'époque (post de décembre 2003) du petit lapsus de George Steiner

My favorite authors are:

• Rainer Maria Rilke
• Philip Pullman
• Haruki Murakami
• Jostein Gaarder
• Stefan Zweig
• Paul Celan
• Pablo Neruda
• Sylvia Plath
• Ernest Hemingway
• Markus Zusak
• Javier Marías
• Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• Banana Yoshimoto
• Jasper Fforde

Except for the dead ones, I have to have new books by these people whenever they come out!

The stone.
The stone in the air, which I followed.
Your eye, as blind as the stone.

We were
hands,
we baled the darkness empty, we found
the word that ascended summer:
flower.

Flower - a blind man's word.
Your eye and mine:
they see
to water.

Growth.
Heart wall upon heart wall
adds petals to it.

One more word like this word, and the hammers
will swing over open ground.

Paul Celan, “Flower”

Why are you so anxious about what to wear?

Rather, consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow; and that they neither toil nor spin.

Yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory is not like one of these.

The Book of Matthew 6:28-29

The word inflected by accretion is no less a unit than are the different parts of a flower in bloom; and what occurs here in langauge is purely organic in character.

Wilhelm Von Humboldt, On the Diversity of Human Languages 103

Do flowers have language? A flower does not speak -- it utters no cries or groans, no sighs or indeed any other audible noise. A flower does not issue its inner cognitions in sonorous expression. Yet flowers have a language.

Even within a purely physical framework, we can speak of a flower signalling in many languages. There are many independent biological networks of signals within which a flower must function in order to survive. Beneath all the networks, however, a strange and more primordial langauge is operating. The langauge of the flower, in this sense, is no longer composed of signs, and doesn’t “mean” anything in terms of any assemblage.

Real language is not constructed of forms and organs but of intensities, forces and durations. Beneath and within the organism, there is a pure machinic order whose functioning assembles the others. A flower is an assemblage in a network both organic and inorganic -- each of whose components are part of other assemblages. Thus what occurs in language is not, as Humboldt has said, purely organic -- rather, even the flower is assembled by interdependent networks of organic and inorganic life.

A representation is non-living, but may be ‘organic.’ We will not ask in isolation what the flower means; rather, only to what degree it is capable of participating in organic and in-organic networks, to what degree it assembles or functions within an assemblage, that is: how much is it capable of inventing, conjoining and disjoining all varieties of multiplicities?

Flowers exchanges light for breath. A reminder that life, after all, is never completely self-enclosed. Beneath and through the innumerate folds and petals, there is a gateway onto the inside. The organization of a flower is itself expressive. While a flower may not buzz, sigh or grumble, it yet exhibits intelligence and self-direction.

They communicate between themselves. We do not know that they are not depicting images or ideas. We do, however, know that flowers feel and operate upon sounds, air and light, and that, in this sense, they participate in a natural or maternal language of solar-chemical transference. A flower does not speak, it sings as it produces air itself. Flowers are societies, entire universes. They seek neither equilibrium nor chaos, but a fantastically delicate balance between energy and entropy. A flower is already a breath and the very possibility of animal life.

A flower is even, perhaps, always a song.

The horror of the Holocaust should have never happened, but in a sense, something positive came of it anyway, and that is the advent of quite a different type of poetry of witness: those of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

Paul Celan was one of those poets, influential in his work, which was overlaid with dark tones and depressing themes, characterizing the Holocaust. Through the utilization of the themes of death and remembrance, written in German, Celan defines what the Holocaust meant to him and the other Jewish victims as well. The importance he places on language was also a major contributor to Celan’s poetry, as it allowed him to revolt against the terror of the Nazis and their death camps and to show the rest of the world his experiences and the experiences of fellow victims.

Paul Celan, a Jewish man, was born in late 1920 in the town of Czernowitz, Buknovia, a Romanian province that no longer exists. Originally, his surname was Antschel, but he changed it to Celan, which is the anagram of the Romanian spelling of his name. His school years were full of variety, as he attended not only a Zionist elementary school, but went on to become active in Jewish Socialist organizations. Later on, he studied medicine in France but eventually turned away from that and immersed himself in the study of language and literature.

When the Holocaust began, Celan’s parents were taken away to a concentration camp and both killed. Celan managed to escape that fate and was instead forced to work in a labor camp until 1944. After that, his career as a poet eventually took off and he gained esteem for his amazing poetry and his brilliance. In 1970, after several years of mental turmoil, including some time spent in a mental institution, Celan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Seine River.

Celan’s mother was German and as a result, his first tongue was German. He associated the German language, his first love, with his mother, and associated discipline and Zionism with his father. He was not overly fond of the Zionist ideas, evidenced by his reluctance to continue to attend Hebrew schools after only three years. He gravitated towards the language of German instead.

Celan began to show proficiency in translation very early on and learned to master German and become well versed in French and Romanian. Eventually, he learned English as well. All this put an immense importance on language for Celan, and it became his driving force, as well as the force that led him to write poetry.

After the Holocaust ended and his parents were killed, the beautiful language of German took on a whole new meaning for Celan. In a way, it was painful for him to write in German, although it ended up being the only language he would write poetry in. He referred to German as “the murderers’ mother-tongue” (Bernhard) and it bothered him that a language so special to him would be seen a language of murderers to the rest of the world.

However, by writing about the horrors of the Holocaust and his feelings towards those horrors in German, Celan utilizes irony in a sense. It is a sort of retaliation towards the Nazis, showing them that although they have killed his people, they have not killed his language. Celan always felt that one should write in one’s mother-tongue, and that is the reason he continued to use a language with so many painful connotations. It shows the true importance of language to him, and how far he will go to preserve his feelings. This is shown throughout many of his poems, in particular the following one.

Celan’s poem “THERE WAS EARTH INSIDE THEM, and they dug” is a representation of Celan’s days in forced labor conscription. The poem can be interpreted as his memories of those days, after his parents were taken to the Nazi death camps, and carries a hint of the hopelessness Celan felt during that time.

The title itself refers to those being forced to work, and some perhaps to dig. The poem is both a literal and figurative representation of Celan’s take on the Holocaust, in that not only were the prisoners literally digging, but they were digging their own graves figuratively. The “earth inside them” portrays frustration and sadness, hopelessness, over the situation outside the conscription camp. The prisoners are trapped by this “earth” and feel the need to do something, but cannot. All they can do is dig, and the digging is useless.

The poem projects to the entire scope of the tragedy of the Holocaust victims. The prisoners in the conscription camps are victims themselves, but unable to reach out and help the ones mostly in danger, that is, those in the concentration camps. The word “dig” is repeated many times and is emphasized greatly. The victims dug in an attempt to escape their situation, but one notices that the digging never actually gets done, that there is always more to do. This remains true to this day, the Holocaust still strikes a sad chord with many families and holds a certain doom to its name. By using the repetitive sound of the word “dig” over and over, Celan creates the sound of digging, a mundane process, and one becomes on the receiving end of a feeling of uselessness that reigns throughout the poem.

“[T]hey did not grow wise, invented no song.” This line provokes a feeling of futility, and emphasizes that the digging does nothing productive and keeps the prisoners in a state of stillness. The digging keeps them useless to themselves as well as to the rest of the Holocaust victims, “And they did not praise God, / who, so they heard, wanted all this.” No one can help them, not even God, who is seemingly endorsing the calamity of the Holocaust.

The lines “[t]here came a stillness, and there came a storm, / and all the oceans came” suggests the activity of the war itself going on outside. Starting from the fear caused by an unnatural stillness, a storm, rather the beginnings of the war, begins, and suddenly tragedy comes crashing in (the oceans), and there’s no way to stop it, another representation of futility that is felt by everyone involved on the victimized side of the Holocaust. This emphasizes the theme of death as well, as the image of waves crashing down suggests that there is a mass smothering of the shore, the safe area, and this translates into the Jewish people being captured and killed by the Nazis taking control over their lives.

The crux of the poem lies in the line “[they] thought up for themselves no language.” To Celan, this is horrible. We know of Celan’s focus on and the importance he places on language, so to not be able to create language, to write and to communicate, is the greatest tragedy of all. This determines the ultimate horror of the Holocaust. When an event occurs that makes an entire race or culture have the potential of losing the things most valuable to it, including language, then one knows that a horrible thing has happened. Hitler attempted to wipe out an entire race of people, and could have potentially succeeded. Those in the concentration camps had no way of fighting back, nor did those in the conscription camps, so essentially, Celan’s fear of the loss of language was altogether too much a reality.

In the poem “A LEAF, treeless for Bertolt Brecht:,” Celan’s focus on language is also very apparent.

“What times are these
when a conversation
is almost a crime
because it includes
so much made explicit?”

This furthers Celan’s view on the horror of language being stolen from the Jewish people. During the Holocaust, the Jews were looked down upon, mocked, discriminated against, and defamed because of who they were. Their language and ideas were considered beneath those of the Germans and as a result, a conversation really could be a crime. The “explicit” content of the conversations Celan describes in his poems would most likely be any Jewish ideas or words, that the Germans saw as imperfect. To make conversation into a crime is in itself a crime, and Celan mourns that this dreadful discrimination occurred.

What makes Celan unique from other Holocaust poets is his determination to show just how awful the Holocaust was by only writing poems in German. Although he was fluent in several other languages, the fact that he only wrote in German shows just how important language was to him, if he was willing to write in the language of murderers to give out to readers across the world. Through the use of references to his lifelong love and obsession, language, Celan gives his readers an inside look at the Holocaust and just how he dealt with those memories after the close of the war. Through poetry in his mother’s tongue.

Works Cited

Geuss, Raymond. “Celan’s Meridian.” Boundary 33, 3 (2006): 201-226.

Forche, Carolyn. Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. New York / London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Frank, Bernhard. “A Triptych for Paul Celan.” Judaism 46, 2 (1997): 250.

Rutenberg, Alan. “A Good European.” American Scholar 61, 3 (1992): 460.

As we concluded discussing Celan, there was the curious - yet completely obvious - question of how to locate the scope of Derrida's claims about the date, the password (shibboleth), and singularity. There are three basic locales in question: 1. the wholly particular parasitic reading, in which case this is only a claim about Celan; 2. a generalized parasitic reading, in which case the alterity of the poem reveals itself, but differently in different cases; 3. a claim about "the poem" or "the poetic," which would serve a regulative or critical function vis-a-vis the writing of poetry. I suspect Derrida would place his "Shibboleth" essay in the second, but I'm inclined to read it in terms of the third. Since authorial intent is overrated, if not altogether totalitarian, I'm cool with that judgment.

I am partial to the third because I think it is both more compelling and more appropriate.

In terms of being compelling, it gives us a space within which we can revisit Adorno's claim that, first, there can be no poetry after Auschwitz (Prisms) and, second, that there cannot be the same poetry after Auschwitz (Negative Dialectics). As pointed out in class today, there is something completely melancholic about both Celan's poetry and Derrida's production, through his reading of "The Meridian," of a certain kind of poetics. That melancholy leads to the obvious question: whence the melancholy of the poetic?

The formal sense of this melancholy comes from the idea of "the poem," which is lost and impossible in poetry; poetry is the dead letter, so "the poem" remains only as ash. "The poem" is a cipher, not ciphered, so this is not an economy of loss, but rather one of ghostliness, of haunting. If Celan writes indecipherable poetry, then Celan is a pure poet, a writer of "the poem" and never of poems or poetry. That is, only the indecipherable is faithful to the cipher; as cipher, the cipher cannot be de-activated or located. The "in" of "indecipherable" marks the ashen character of the pure poetic word, of the pure poem, insofar as the ash cannot be re-rendered or re-presented - it cannot be de-ciphered. The cipher labors outside economies of repair and reconstruction. Thus the demand of reading to which "Shibboleth" calls us.

The deformalized sense of this melancholy is the point of contact with Adorno. I thought for awhile after class today about how Celan's poetry might be exemplary as a response to a saddened world. So, I looked up numbers of deaths in World Wars I and II.

WWI: 19 million dead, 20 million wounded. Over half civilians. In less than five years.
WWII: 72 million dead, 46 million of them civilians. In only six years.

Sometimes numbers obscure the human face of disaster. Sometimes numbers tell a lot more than that. This kind of loss ought to change everything, and it certainly is that shadow within which Celan, Levinas, and Derrida work.

Is there something particularly ethical or, to use a more awkward-yet-blunt phrase, morally appropriate about Celan's vision of "the poem"? Yes, if poetry is to bear any relation to memory. If the poetic word sends us to the Other, which Celan and Levinas and Derrida all claim, then remembering the immemorial has to be constitutive of that sending. Perhaps the cipher is our arrival-point. Ethically attuned.

In the end, I think Derrida discovers the two senses in which the poetic traffics in dead letters (setting aside the older meditation on grapheme in Of Grammatology): the movement of the saying into the said, which introduces death into language (the said is where the saying passes away) and the fate of the poetic in the face of remembering the immemorial, which is where memory dies in its reach toward what cannot be remembered. For all of his talk about circumcision and passage and passwords, Derrida comes back again and again to how the impossible speaks in the poem - in ash. Levinas is right when he says that the poetic word is for the Other. Derrida is there to remind us that the Other, who is no one other than history's Other as the faces of loss, has already left the scene, leaving only the trace of himself in the date. With ashes and dates, Derrida keeps reminding us, begins religion.

The poem as holiness. The poetic word as initiation and passing-into. Celan as pure poet, writer of the unconditional poem. Cipher.

But there is also a fascinating collection of relations within (not yet between) these three thinkers. The relations circulate around being birthed "other," so already a cipher whose decipherment meant elimination. Celan, the German Jew after the Shoah. Levinas, the Lithuanian Jew in Germany and France. Derrida, the Algerian Jew - already both other to home, other in the colonial relation - in France. Animating all three, as well, is Heidegger. To be, then, is already u-topic, broken apart in a fractured space, that out-of-place Levinas so clearly discerns in Celan's "The Meridian."

To what does Celan's speech, "The Meridian," bring us? In what space? Toward what? Levinas and Derrida are right to see, in Celan's work, the primacy of relationality. Relationality is another name for the meridian with which all are concerned (and we could include Heidegger in that, if we wanted). The meridian "leads to encounters," as Celan puts it, so names that third item, a precondition of encounter, with which Celan is concerned and which to my mind has always been a stumbling point in Levinas' work. What is this relationality? How does it function? What does it bring into being? And where can we locate it?

The answer is of course the poetic word, or, as Celan puts it more precisely, "the poem," which is impossible yet speaks. "The poem" is either the idea of the poem as such (Celan), the performativity of the poetic word bringing contact with the Other in its utterance (Levinas), or the specificity of the date announced explicitly or by implication in the poem itself (Derrida). In each case - and I don't think it much matters who is "right" on this - "the poem" attends to the between of subjectivity in the accusative and its pre-original Other. I would claim that this sort of between mixes a pre-original activity (a peculiar notion in need of exposition) with the absolute passivity of Levinas, insofar as the poetic word is that moment in which we find ourselves rendering ourselves vulnerable - hence the pre-original activity sustaining the absolute passivity of the ethical relation. We have to become the kind of beings capable of registering the poetic word. We have to read, to listen, to receive differently, which is why so much of Celan's poetry is concerned with the encroachment of light.

This encroachment is the very little that remains of "the poem" in the poem, that bit of singularity that no consumption of the poetic word can obtain. (We can see why Celan is such an appropriate site for reading Adorno's Negative Dialectics.) It is an encroachment of light, always on the fringe or heel (heal?) of one who is fleeing (a boatman departing from the shore, for example), which says two things to me: that "the poem" lights itself and we only need see it (or let it see us) and that it is an ultrapositivity. That is, in this latter turn of phrase (which I borrow from Richard Cohen's use in another context altogether), "the poem" carries a singularity who gives something to thinking. This sense of the transcendent does not, as for the Levinas of Otherwise than being, leave subjectivity with the retreat of an absolute absence. The poetic word carries a glimpse of hope, perhaps, and surely a very little, not nothing with which subjectivity can gather.

Why would this capacity to gather matter? For the simple reason that life goes on, that the ethical births a subjectivity into being, so it is always worth asking how it is that life can go on, how a subjectivity addresses with light, to light, and so not always into a deserted desert, which gives only an abyss to thinking. This seems to me not only important, but of ultimate importance.

prologue:
bernadette's delicious "these stories about after the revolution" mashed to the tune of popcorn's ridiculous "beautiful sunday" (compliments the defunct djan's world of oddities--the original electro-synth euro-moogers) --all of which went fine, fine, to a two minute reel of an 8mm mighty mouse at the circus

performance:
mighty mouse returns (precedes) in top form in the original castle film release of 'mighty mouse.' amy coenen, a vocalist, & i provided the soundtrack. amy offered sumptuous improvisational tone-jumping--i read the following text--six parts crazy with (mostly) celan, acker, foucault (this week's reading--more on this soon), arnheim, schwitters, & christian bök: for no other reason than that their words are simply on my mind current.

so really, the raison d'être, the jouissance (i'd rather) in playing with amy, who was a joy to perform with. all for fun, anyhow. much. much & muchly. lots of this to come, i suppose, but it's still new to me.

this was not the mighty mouse film from tonight:

but then. to digress.
anyhow, there were questions on 'source of text'
--&so...

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