Twentieth-century German poetry

"This groundbreaking anthology will serve as the standard for years to come. Michael Hofmann has assembled brilliant translations of the major German poets of the last century, from Rilke and Brecht to Durs Grunbein and Jan Wagner, in an approachable, readable, and endlessly interesting collection. Here we find poetry as a living counterforce to sociopolitical reality; poetry of dissent and fear and protest; poetry of private griefs and music. From the subtlety and elegance of Brecht, to the extraordinary "jargon-glooms" of Gottfried Bonn, to the oblique (and straightforward) responses to the country's villainous history, to the bitter, cleansed, and haunted poetry of the postwar years, this anthology illuminates the full span of twentieth-century German verse, ending with a reunified country looking at itself and its neighbors in new ways. This is an essential and timely collection of poems from a tumultuous, violent, tragic, and hopeful century, written in the language of those who were at the heart of the matter."--Jacket.