Before the Invention of Paradise

Ludwig Steinherr's poetry, both profound and accessible, seems an obvious candidate for English translation. For one thing, it gives us a picture of the things that concern many modern German poets: its themes are silence, memory, knowing and the impossibility of knowing, the everyday and what is beyond. It also shares with much contemporary German poetry its spareness of style, lack of ornamentation and even of punctuation. Afterlife is as important as backstory. And so textual gaps, that play so important and poignant a role in modern German poetry, are here not just silent monuments for loss, but they are also the place for the reader to enter into.

Richard Dove's translations are outstanding. In this volume, you can read his English versions alone or alongside the original poems: either way, you get that unique combination of the poet's and the translator's work that makes good translated poetry so rewarding.