Lyssa

Great poems, I like all of them very much. No. 41 is really touching in its sadness. Sometimes the more people are around us, the more we feel alone. No. 43 I connect to it very strong. And No 44 is so heartbreaking and yet sweet. But what swept me of the feet was No. 42. This one is pure perfection to me. A strong message in a very artistic short form. Love it. Thank you for sharing these. 🙂

Yes, horrible but brilliant. Logically I have more emotional access to the German version than to the English, because I am German. And while reading the German version a very irritating and cruel effect in my ear happens. The rhythem compared with the words is very musical, almost soft and every time I get used to this melody words and phrases appear, which cut into the melody like a whip. Like a disharmonic chord, which hits my nerves and resounds almost physical painfully.

The picture he describes is scarring, but I can not say what is more scaring the picture or the way he phrases it so clearly and impressively. He saw very early that there was a need for a change of system. And your translation illuminates his thoughts in English language. Which is awesome and I think Hans would have cherished your effort much. He said: Will poets really be there to create all (the new world)? Sadly the answer was no at that time, but I think, this question continues. And your hard work and your wonderful poetry makes me answer it with yes, now.

This sonnet creates a very special atmosphere. The description of the landscape, almost a fairy tale forest in expectation, gives the phrase "sinnlos bereit", Hans used in the last stanza, an even stronger meaning. A contrast, to let us participate his feelings. He already knows the wrongness of what he feels forced to do. The absurdity of human war in front of those forests. And he phrases it in the second stanza very clearly. Again a brilliant translation. 🙂

This sonnet is so deep emotional and personal. The endless humiliation through the circumstances he feels and his longing for Wilhelm to comfort him or to just to be with him. Oh and I can understand his longing for books! You wrote a magnificent translation in every aspect and detail. Thank you. 🙂 Muha P.S. I am so fascinated, how you brought specific German grammar, which has no equivalent in English, in your translation, so the message is completely preserved. Awesome. (I gladly take every cultur shock on me, about any linguistic theme, if it is you, who translate it. 😉 Just teasing you a bit. Muha)

What a twist. I didn`t expect this. And I mean this as big compliment. 🙂 I so love Kathros. She is awesome. Now I can`t wait to see, what the two of them will do, to get out of this situation. Why must I read so fast? Why is this week sooooo long? Much too long, much, much, much. 😁 Muha

When I read this poem, I feel so sorry for the young man, who was described by friends as a sensitive, pensive, melancholy person. Sonnet No 6 gives a glimps, how he yearned life and yet heard the rattle of death near. Magnificent translation @AC Benus.

As I said before, this translation fits perfect the original. And I can only agree with @Parker Owensabout the impression, which are transported. 🙂

This poem goes back and forth between the big unit and the single person with his emotions. It develops from an anyonymous mass looked upon from the outside, through using the personal experience of emotions inside the lyrical-I, to come to the cruel conclusion, which again concerns the whole of the soldiers. Your translation transports all of this - brilliant work. Really brilliant. The pictures are so clear and so depressing. For me I read a change of the lyrical-I in the different stanzas. It looks as if the poet uses the change of perspective to come to his own conclusions. A step to confront oneself with the reality, maybe. A way to emancipate from traditions and propaganda. I think, it is one of the poems, which shows Ehrenbaum-Degels changing/developing very strongly.

I am in, if you start the tour! 😄

What a funny chapter. I am still chuckling about the last part, very wild fantasies those girls have. lol I am curious, what really happens and how "Hymena" deals with it. And it is so sweet to see Myiscus and Meleager together, here again I am curious what kind of twist you have prepared for them. What an awesome story. 😁

Humanity’s ideals no longer breathe -- Ahnung von Menschheit atmet längst nicht mehr. The reality and horror of this war can probably not be better described. The haunting pictures Ehrenbaum-Degele used, are perfectly translated and reaching deeply into my mind as in the German version.I imagine the young man, who went to war for all the wrong reasons (and sorry, but as German I can only see it as wrong reasons, following cruel ideas and traditions of obeying, grown up in a system, which puts obeying the order over everything and searching for a strange aspect of manhood), finding himself in this horror. What poet he could have become, what poems he could have written, if not following a mad, conceited king and this stupid ideals. Most saddening, if I read the poem is that nevertheless so many artists processed their experiences and horror from WW1 in their art and poetry the learning effect was nil as history showed us. Even more reason not to forget, to try to learn, to remember and make it hopefully better someday. In fact, that German Bundeswehr has no absolute obedience anymore is a great achievement in my eyes, every soldier is responsible for his or her decisions. But coming back to your translations, all of what I said with many side tracks is: I know first hand, how much hard work and effort you put into them. The results are outstanding. Your work is important and magnificent. I feel so thankful to read it. Muha

Such a picture of being desperate overpowered. This poem builds an arch between the doomed fate of the generations. Yet, the short look on a possibility of a modern future for the lyrical I, which got denied by the royals and their seek of a cruel understanding of glory. Your translation gives Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele a voice again. It reads to me like a manifest for peace and freedom. That is deeply touching, heartbreaking and hope giving at the same time. Hope giving, because there still is hope, that we all learn some day. If someone reads this — your magnificent translation or the original — the reader can not stay untouched, I think. Thanks for your brilliant and important work. Muha

lol Do you really have the feeling, I still possess capacities for doing so? Can you talk to my boss, that I should have longer vacations, to write more poetry? .... I will think about playing along....