whatever happens
by Judith Zander
translated from German by Bradley Schmidt
february at the latest daily leafing
through the orchid calender
in the stars
there is nothing written except when
cassiopeia poses all kinds
of improper questions that can
neither be answered with yes or no just
Woe is me! and the lady’s slippers
have not yet worn out who will
slip them onto my feet who wants
to be the first
i escape from
(burning out is a lie fading away
as well)
Ron Winkler
is a German poet, writer, editor, critic, and translator living in Berlin. Born in 1973, he studied German literature and language and history at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. He founded the poetry magazine intendenzen, and was its editor for about ten years. Several of his poems have been translated into 20 languages. In the United States, his work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Boston Review, Blackbird, Atlanta Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere. Winkler is the recipient of the 2005 Leonce and Lena Prize for poetry, Germany’s most prestigious award for emerging poets, and the 2006 Mondsee Poetry Award. In 2010, he served as a writer–in–residence in Córdoba, Argentina; the following year, in Venice, Italy. This past summer he was granted a residence scholarship at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby on Gotland, Sweden. His most recent poetry collection is Frenetische Stille (Frenetic Silence), which came out in 2010. That same year, he published a book of flash fiction, Torp. In addition to his work as a poet, Winkler has edited several anthologies: a collection of young American poets; another featuring new German voices; and, most recently, poems dealing with snow. He has translated full–length poetry collections by Billy Collins, Matthew Zapruder, G.C. Waldrep, Jeffrey McDaniel, David Lerner, Sarah Manguso, and Arielle Greenberg, as well as a novel by Forrest Gander. This interview, both conducted in German by Nancy Allison and translated by her, is the first with Winkler to appear in an English–language poetry quarterly.
from the plane you see
by Ulrike Almut Sandig
translated from German by Bradley Schmidt
by day the smart bluescreen of pools
in one thousand and one gardens at
the house generally squares the closer
you come to Germany. look
at night in blood orange the avenue
of lights those persian cuban (where are we?)
cities! down below the highways shine
above here we shine. the night arises
we’re making strides — will you have your
child here, what will you call it? call it
ASIA, call it ALMUT, call it ALPHA, let
OMEGA be. we come from somewhere
we sleep, we fly nowhere at all.
COLOR
by Ulrike Almut Sandig
translated from German by Bradley Schmidt
*
shoot a PICTURE: my clothes are
blue. forget me not. this flower is blue.
everything that we have is also important!
yes, everything is blue! my darling is a sailor.
weasels are blue, this weather is blue, your
screen is blue, the poems are blue, my
pipe is always my pipe, my smoke
is blue, all rings are blue, the sky
is blue. you’re singing: velvet
should also be blue.
**
seen close up the earth produces neither a picture,
nor does it merely look blue from a distance. just like
small clothes, smoke, love, stems of flowers. seen from
here nothing is blue. just as little as a screen. screen
ain’t blue. screen is the melancholic GAP, covered
by weather charts. screen is absence of things.
my ring is not blue, material is not blue,
weather charts are not blue. the sky
should not be blue either.