Ashes for Breakfast

"Ashes for Breakfast is a brilliantly layered book [that] never becomes repetitive thanks to its almost organic sensibility . . . Grünbein's poems read as if the forces of history pressing in on the present drove them into this world."-Melanie Rehak, The New York Times Book Review

"Intelligently translated . . . Despite the portentous and ubiquitous death knells sounded by many cultural critics, poetry is doing just fine, and for anyone in need of evidence, the work of Durs Grünbein should suffice . . . Grünbein is a vital new voice in the world of poetry . . . Like Joseph Brodsky, to whom he is often compared, he is a serious and focused poet whose work has a depth that deserves our attention. If given the chance, this momentous volume will offer many pleasures."-David Hellman, San Francisco Chronicle

"Grünbein is a truly cosmopolitan poet . . . [He is] creating poetry which, however subtly, participates in and facilitates Germany's sustained attempts of reconfiguring and redefining itself in post-Cold War Europe."-Michael Eskin, The Times Literary Supplement

"[Grünbein's] poems have a nonchalant grace, and shine against their setting of Stalinoid concrete, drabness and dreck. What makes them especially appealing are their volatile shifts of perspective, a sardonic wit and the way they seem to limn out a whole series of potential directions . . . The unhoused quality of these poems has found as permanent and well-constructed a home in English as anyone . . . could wish."-James McKendrick, The Times Literary Supplement

"Younger by five to ten years than most of the poets once gathered loosely around the former Prenzlauer Berg 'scene' in East Berlin, Durs Grünbein . . . has emerged as one of the most visible, prolific, and intellectually serious poets of that generation. Unlike some of his peers, who seem to have become disoriented by reunification-e.g., Uwe Kolbe and Bert Papenfuß-Gorek-Grünbein has consistently worked to develop his own idiom and poetic identity."-Neil H. Donahue, World Literature Today

"Durs Grünbein is one of the most intelligent poets writing in German today. His subject is nothing less than 'this life, so useless, so rich.' It is wonderful to have his selected poems in Michael Hofmann's note-perfect translation."-John Ashbery

"Grünbein is a highly original poet, an heir to the riches of German and European Modernism. What's striking in this poetry is a hard, almost cynical tone which turns out to be just a lid on a jar containing many substances."-Adam Zagajewski

"Born in Dresden in 1962, when the city was under East Germany's Communist rule, Grünbein has established himself as the leading poetic voice of unified Germany after the fall of the Wall in 1990. A gifted poet and clever scavenger of various literary traditions, he picks through the linguistic debris of European culture to mold his findings into well-metered and often deeply captivating verse. Packed into this selection, which has been culled from collections published between 1988 and 1999, are electrifying insights into Germany's effort to understand its role in the world today. Grünbein's predominantly unrhymed, formal poems run on the alternating currents of present-day Germany's giddiness at having no greater responsibilities than any other nation and the country's equally overwhelming grief at having so horribly squandered its potential for prominence. With wit and psychological acumen, Grünbein's poems at their best transform the specificity of this peculiarly German dilemma into a general, human concern . . . Hofmann . . . locates suitable equivalents to Grünbein's virtuoso act of laying down multiple verbal tracks in the briefest lines to startling effect."-Library Journal



Table of Contents
Translator's Preface

from GRAUZONE MORGENS (1988)
Mornings in the Grayzone

Eine einzige silberne Büchse
A Single Tin

Trike, César
Trike, Cesar

No. 3
No. 3

No. 8
No. 8

Dieser Tag gehört dir
All About You

Nullbock
No Fun

Nimm es an!
"Accept It!"

Grund, vorübergehend in New York zu sein
Reason to Be Temporarily in New York

Badewannen
Bathtubs

Ohne Titel
Untitled

Fast ein Gesang
Almost a Song

Belebter Bach
Bubbling Stream

Olé
Olé

MonoLogisches Gedicht No. 1
MonoLogical Poem #1

MonoLogisches Gedicht No. 2
MonoLogical Poem #2

MonoLogisches Gedicht No. 4
MonoLogical Poem #4

MonoLogisches Gedicht No. 5
MonoLogical Poem #5

MonoLogisches Gedicht No. 13
MonoLogical Poem #13

Perpetuum mobile
Perpetuum Mobile


from SCHÄDELBASISLEKTION (1991)
Skull Base Lesson

Portrait des Künstlers als junger Grenzhund
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Border Dog (not Collie)

from FALTEN UND FALLEN (1994)
Folds and Traps

Variationen auf kein Thema
Variations on No Theme

Einem Schimpansen im Londoner Zoo
To a Chimpanzee in the London Zoo

Einem Okapi im Münchner Zoo
To an Okapi in the Munich Zoo

Einem Pinguin im New Yorker Aquarium
To a Penguin in the New York Aquarium


from NACH DEN SATIREN (1999)
After the Satires

In der Provinz
In the Provinces

Klage eines Legionärs aus dem Feldzug des Germanicus an die Elbe
Lament of a Legionnaire on Germanicus's Campaign to the Elbe River

Der Misanthrop auf Capri
The Misanthrope on Capri

Club of Rome
Club of Rome

Tizians neue Zimmer
Titian's New Pad

Einer Gepardin im Moskauer Zoo
To a Cheetah in the Moscow Zoo

Memorandum
Memorandum

Asche zum Frühstück: Dreizehn Fantasiestücke
Ashes for Breakfast: Thirteen Fantasies

Kosmopolit
Cosmopolite

Berliner Runde
Berlin Rounds

Grüße aus der Hauptstadt des Vergessens
Greetings from Oblivion City

Vor einem alten Röntgenbild
In Front of an Old X-Ray

Vita brevis
Vita Brevis

Mantegna vielleicht
Mantegna, Perhaps

Europa nach dem letzten Regen
Europe After the Last Rains


from ERKLÄRTE NACHT (2002)
Configured Night

Berlin posthum
Berlin Posthumous

Arkadien für alle
Arcadia for All

Notes