May 20, 2026 · Theodore Anderson

The True, the Strange, and the Wonderful: Circling Paul Celan

“German poetry is going in a very different direction than French poetry,” Celan wrote in 1958. “No matter how alive its traditions, with most sinister events in its memory, most questionable developments around it, it can no longer speak the language which many willing ears seem to expect. Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts ‘beauty.’ It tries to be truthful.” He is talking about how language adapts to rupture and refuses complacency. He is describing German poetry in the wake of Nazism.