Blush (book)

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Röten (cat. Vermells ) is a volume of poetry written in Catalan by the Austrian author Klaus Ebner , who translated the poems himself into German and published the book as a bilingual edition with the Catalan publisher SetzeVents Editorial in Urús.

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In keeping with its title, the work contains lyrical thoughts on the color red ; References and allusions to red, blood , dawn and love. Accordingly, the Catalan reviewer Marta Pérez i Sierra titled her review “Fire, Blood, Love”. The following example illustrates how the author processes the concept of red color:

the wine of yore
a red glass
the giant gulps
of oblivion

The poems have neither a title nor punctuation marks . Marta Pérez i Sierra points out that this can make reading difficult, but continues: “(...) short poems, each of which burns as emotion; they seem independent of each other, but together they represent fire. "

The poems are very short, as the Catalan writer Josep Navarro Santaeulàlia points out in the foreword of the book: "As a poet, Klaus Ebner prefers the short form, in which the word, condensed into a small space, is forced to open up the whole range of its meanings." Poems are chained together in such a way that each first verse takes up a word that was used in the last verse of the previous poem. Likewise, the last poem of the book connects with the first and thus indicates a circle .

The book contains eighty-five poems. Five of them are prose poems that also contain no punctuation marks. For example:

the most tangible question the privilege blind despite the utmost care an inspiration rises in a thousand meanders bittersweet sober its consistency is a puzzle rain shower of poorly understood discipline a very solemn miracle it rains contradicting answers to a field full of poppies in the morning and in the evening the poet reaches for the page

The author added quotes from the Roman poets Ennius , Catullus and Ovid to the cycle of poems . Reviewer Wolfgang Ratz recognizes an allusion to the roots of the Catalan language. In addition, the first verse of the first poem contains the word “Genesis,” as does the last line of the eighty-fifth poem. An allusion to the symbolic and mystical meaning of the color red. Ratz means that fire and blood are reminiscent of destruction and liveliness, of death and birth. In addition, the use of the “Genesis” lemma reveals the symmetrical structure of the book.

Criticism and Origin

In the Catalan countries, Vermells' publication attracted a certain amount of media interest. The book was published in two languages. The author himself translated the poems into his German mother tongue. The Austrian reviewers Martin Dragosits and Wolfgang Ratz note this fact as a curiosity. Ebner explains his lyrical production in Catalan as follows: “When writing in Catalan, I take a lot of freedom; There are no restrictions due to too much reasoning. "

Marta Pérez i Sierra speaks of a chain of poetic texts and compares each individual poem with a chain link. The repeated words dock together and reveal the "numerous connotations that the color red has for the poet". The author thinks the rhythm and melody of the verses paint a picture.

During an interview, the Catalan editor Ramon Texidó asked the author where he got his poetic inspiration from. Klaus Ebner replied: “Out of myself. It might sound a bit strange, but when I write a poem it seems to me that there is a kind of voice inside of me dictating what I am writing. Of course the poems reflect my own experiences; but I did this maybe ten or twenty years ago. They mix and in connection with a certain feeling they then become the poem that I am writing. Perhaps I should mention in this context that I always write poems by hand, with a pencil or pen, even though I type prose directly into the computer. "

Regarding the German translation, Wolfgang Ratz notes that due to the different syntax, Ebner could not always adhere to the principle of repeating the last word of a poem at the beginning of the next. On the other hand, in his opinion, the German translation would read like an original.

bibliography

Work editions

  • Vermells / Röten , bilingual Catalan and German, paperback, SetzeVents Editorial, Urús, 2009 ISBN 978-84-92555-10-9
  • Vermells / Röten , bilingual Catalan and German, e-book (PDF), SetzeVents Editorial, Urús, 2009 ISBN 978-84-92555-30-7

literature

  • Martin Dragosits: Review in Kultur Online, Bregenz (Austria) / Binz (Switzerland) 2009, link to the review
  • Marta Pérez i Sierra: Review (Catalan) «El foc, la sang, l'amor.» ("Fire, blood, love."), Diari Maresme, Catalonia 2009, link to the review
  • Wolfgang Ratz: Review in Literarisches Österreich No. 2/09, Vienna 2009, pp. 18–19, link to the online edition with the review (PDF file; 531 kB)

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Pérez i Sierra, Marta: Review “El foc, la sang, l'amor”, in: Diari Maresme, 2009 online article (June 1, 2011)
  2. Vermells / Röten , p. 40
  3. Pérez i Sierra, Marta: "El foc, la sang, l'amor", in: Diari Maresme, 2009: "(...) poemes breus cada un dels quals, sentiment, crema, i semblen independents l'un de l ' altre, però junts són el foc. "
  4. Navarro Santaeulàlia, Josep: "Von JN Santaeulàlia", in: Vermells / Röten , p. 10
  5. Vermells / Röten , p. 76
  6. "Genesis of Fire", Vermells / Röten , p. 13
  7. “the new Genesis rises”, Vermells / Röten , p. 97
  8. Ratz, Wolfgang: “Review of Vermells / Röten”, in: Literarisches Österreich No. 2/09, Vienna 2009, pp. 18–19: “This cycle of poems begins and ends with the word“ Genesis ”. This circumstance refers on the one hand to the symbolic-mystical interpretations of the red color as fire and blood (with all the associations of destruction and life force, death and birth), on the other hand to the well-considered and symmetrical structure of the book. "
  9. See the entry in the Enciclopèdia Catalana on German literature . (August 1, 2011)
  10. Quoted from the French Wikipedia; Original source : Website of the Catalan author Marta Pérez i Sierra ("En català escric des de la llibertat, no des del raonament.") ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.martaperezsierra.com
  11. Interview (Catalan) by Ramon Texidó, 2009, in the journal Penedès Digital. ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Original text: «En mi mateix. Potser això sona una mica estrany o fins i tot altívol, però quan escric un poema, em sembla que hi ha una mena de veu en mi que està dictant el que haig d'escriure. És clar que en els meus poemes repercuteixen les meves experiències; aquestes, però, poden datar des de fa deu o vint anys - forms una barreja que, juntament amb un sentiment particular, forgen el poema que escric. Potser cal esmentar en aquest context que escric poesia semper a mà, amb un llapis o una ploma, mentre que escric la prosa directament a l'ordinador. " @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.penedesdigital.cat
  12. See a review by Wolfgang Ratz in Literarisches Österreich No. 2/09, Vienna 2009, pp. 18-19

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