Mortal Diamond: Poems

By Durs Grünbein

In this new collection of poems—his most philosophically probing and poetically revealing to date—Durs Grünbein takes us on a spiritual journey through the labyrinthine cosmos of the human soul and its manifold embodiments across the ages. Addressing us in his own voice as well as through the prisms of Seneca, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Pascal, Malebranche, Vermeer, and others, Grünbein subtly and lovingly traces the paradoxes of creatureliness—its joys and sufferings, its resilience and fragility—to remind us of the “mortal diamond from the hands of nature” that is life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781935830184

Durs Grünbein

Durs Grünbein is the author of eight previous volumes of poetry. His work has been awarded many major German literary prizes, including the highest, the Georg-Büchner-Preis, and the 2004 Friedrich-Nietzsche-Preis. He has lived in Berlin since 1985.

Book preview

Durs Grünbein

Mortal Diamond

Poems

Translated from the German by Michael Eskin

Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

New York 2013

~ Philosophical thinking is Yoga for the Mind® ~

Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc. provides a publication venue for original philosophical thinking steeped in lived life, in line with our motto: philosophical living & lived philosophy.

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1-935830-18-4

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

P. O. Box 250645, New York, NY 10025, USA

www.westside-philosophers.com / www.yogaforthemind.us

Authorized English Translation Copyright (c) 2012 by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

Preface, Notes, Editorial Work (c) 2012 by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

Cover Art (c) 2012 by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

Meditation nach Descartes, from Falten und Fallen Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1994; Aporie Augustinus (Über die Zeit), from Nach den Satiren Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1999; Schwacher Trost, In Ägypten, Julia Livilla, Sand oder Kalk, Metapher, Verwandlungen, Erklärte Nacht, from Erklärte Nacht Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1999; Der Schnee von heute, Lob der Pferde, from Vom Schnee oder Descartes in Deutschland Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2003; An Seneca. Postscriptum, In eigener Sache, from An Seneca. Postscriptum Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2004; Verzweiflung in moderatem Ton, Konversation gegen drei, Was ich bin, Raketen unterm Empyreum, Der Astronom, Exaltationen im Schlaf, Aus den arktis⁠chen Kriegen, from Strophen für übermorgen Copyright (c) Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2007; Parenthese für Optimisten (1st pub. in Sinn und Form 3 [2010] / 1st Engl. pub. in The Vocation of Poetry [2011]) Copyright (c) 2009 by Durs Grünbein; Ein kleiner Jude, Korrespondenz, Conatus, Die weiße Schürze (1st pub., in earlier versions, in Akzente 1 [2004]),Malebranche (1st pub. in Akzente 5 [2008]), Mücke und Palast (1st pub.), Der Indianer des Geistes—Bagatellen aus dem Leben des Philosophen Pascal (1st pub., in an earlier version, in Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte 2.1 [2008]), Wenn kein Credo mehr gilt (1st pub. in Libellen in Liberia [2010]), Inspektor Kobold (1st pub. in The New Yorker [Sept. 27, 2010] / 1st Germ. pub. in Libellen in Liberia [2010]), Stockholm. Ein Abschiedsblick (1st pub., in an earlier version, in Zeitschrift für Germanistik. Neue Folge 21.2 [2011]), Astronaut im Oktober (1st pub. in Limbische Akte [2011] / 1st Engl. pub. in Sport 40 [2012]) Copyright (c) 2011 by Durs Grünbein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. For all inquiries concerning permission to reuse material from any of our titles, contact the publisher in writing, or the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA (www.copyright.com).

The colophon is a registered trademark of Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.

We would like to thank Karen Leeder, Derek Attridge, Ian Cooper, Jamie Venise, and James Vescovi for reading and commenting on these translations; Bernard Schwartz for hosting Durs Grünbein and Michael Eskin at the 92 Street Y in the fall of 2011, where some of these poems were first read in public; Martin Lindquist for patiently answering all questions pertaining to Stockholm; Paul Muldoon and Fergus Barrowman for kindly offering to pre-publish two of the poems in The New Yorker and Sport 40, respectively.

This book is also available in print

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Grünbein, Durs.

[Poems. English. Selections]

Mortal diamond: poems / Durs Grünbein ; translated from the German by Michael Eskin. p. cm.

A unique collection of poems selected from multiple original sources and not previously published under one original title.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-935830-07-8 (alk. paper)

1. Grünbein, Durs--Translations into English. I. Eskin, Michael. II. Title.

PT2667.R842A2 2013

831'.914--dc23

2012024781

*

Contents

Translator’s Preface

I

Conversation around Three

Transformations

What I Am

Parenthesis for Optimists

Exaltations in Sleep

Despair in a Moderate Key

II

Cold Comfort

In His Own Behalf

Sand or Lime

Julia Livilla

In Egypt

To Seneca. A Postscript

Aporia Augustine (On Time)

Metaphor

III

Meditation after Descartes

The Snows of Today

In Praise of Horses

Stockholm. A Farewell Glance

Malebranche

Mosquito and Palace

A Little Jew

Correspondence

Conatus

The White Apron

IV

The Indian of Spirit

Bagatelles on the Life of the Philosopher Pascal

V

From the Arctic Wars

The Astronomer

Rockets beneath the Empyreum

Inspector Kobold

When no Credo Is Left

Astronaut in October

Illumined Night

*

A Note on Translation

About the Authors

Selected Works by Durs Grünbein

Available from UWSP

*

Translator’s Preface

Imagine a thinking, Durs Grünbein muses, that could gain access to certain otherwise hard-to-reach places, like dental floss between the molars or an endoscope to the stomach. Some of these places it will allow us to see and experience for the very first time—this or that ramification of the sprawling cave system of the soul that pervades each human body and can only be discovered by a resourceful imagination boldly pushing ahead into still unsecured galleries. This kind of thinking, Grünbein explains, is poetic thinking—the particular thinking that takes place in and through poetry.

What thinking in poetry actually looks and feels like, how it concretely unfolds, and in what way, if any, it might differ from and enrich such other modes of intellectual pursuit as the properly discursive, instrumental, and philosophical, which have traditionally been associated with the business of thinking, the poems and prose pieces collected in these pages palpably stage. Among other things, Grünbein’s poetic thinking throws into relief that the human psyche is never