sunfright | saturday.

For the first time in a very long time, I was able to sit down today and read a whole poetry collection, start to finish. I'm not an advocate for doing that, generally. I think most poetry collections benefit from sitting a bit with each poem and not necessarily in the given order, rather than rushing on to the next and the next. However, you have to understand, I haven't read a whole book of any kind for months. I haven't been able to concentrate - so this is a huge milestone and a great success for me. Along with the feeling of actually being motivated for something that wasn't directly my own creation? Haven't experienced that in maybe years.

And I say directly, because these poems are the inspiration for my three swan poems that will hopefully become a small collection little by little. In time for me to send them to Stephanie, when and if she gets to dance Odette/Odile.

The poems I was reading was the English translation of various Anise Koltz collections into English, called "At the Edge of Night". Anise Koltz was born in 1928 in Luxembourg and it is from this country as her context that she writes. She used to write in German, but after her husband, who was a concentration camp survivor, died quite early on, she began writing in French instead, saying that the German language was too difficult to bear. It is from her French collections that these poems have been taken and translated by Anne-Marie Clasheen.

I learned about Koltz some ten years ago while working on my original universe with my girlfriend. Our characters were all from Luxembourg and we researched quite extensively, even visiting the country one summer vacation - an epic trip that I unfortunately don't have much photographic evidence from any longer. Time steals all things.

The first collection of hers I read was At the Devil's Banquet which I still have somewhere, although our move three years ago has displaced the book. I will refind it one day, I swear. Until then, I have At the Edge of Night instead. It takes poems from four different collections (The Call of the Sparrow-Hawk, Shadow-Bearer, Fire-Eater and Blessed Be the Serpent) and show them side by side with the French originals which is really interesting, even if you only know a little bit of French like me. Koltz's language is straight-forward and pretty easy to read, but her imagery is complex and multi-layered and can be revisited many times without ever feeling old or dull. She writes very short poems, everything from four to fifteen sentences and she has a concise, a bit brusque style that I really love. It isn't floral or purple in any way, her writing, it makes no excuses.

She writes about themes spanning from dysfunctional families, loss, religion, the situation of the world over the concept of writing. And she juggles the red threads between all these things so beautifully in her poems. Her style is distinct and easily recognisable. I haven't found anyone else that write in a way I'd call 'similar' - at least not in English. I have some Danish poets I'd say write in a similar manner, though about completely different topics.

I have selected four poems here to share with you, just to give you a taste of her style and imagery.

THE RIGID LANDSCAPE (from The Call of the Sparrow-Hawk)

On this transparent day
light sits on the stones

If you touch the earth
it crumbles

Speech explodes with heat

Pursue your wandering
in this rigid landscape
he who stops
is lost

PROLOGUE (from Shadow-Bearer)

Life is no long quiet river
but a bloodbath

Yet you ask me for
poetry decorated with flowers
with little birds

I'm sorry Ladies and Gentlemen
each of my poems
buries your dead

*** (from Fire-Eater)

All my life
I have sat
in front of the blank page
lacking the courage
to turn it

*** (from Blessed Be the Serpent)

I had hundreds of mothers
young and old
with and without crutches

All refused to suckle me
starving at their sides
I grew weaker
burying my roots
in the earth
to nourish myself

What do you think? I'm interested in what you think of these poems and her style!