Poetry. Translated from the German by Michael Eskin. In this new collection of poems--his most philosophically probing and poetically revealing to date--Durs Grunbein 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, Grunbein 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.

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. Translated from the German by Michael Eskin. This extraordinary book offers a dazzling personal poetics as well as a sustained engagement with the origins of poetry itself. In tracing an arc from the landfills and forests of an East German childhood to the "global air-space of poetry," it takes in a breathtaking poetic itinerary from the Classics to the present day. Emerging from the heart of the European tradition, every page is packed with insight, wit and linguistic surprises, superbly rendered in Michael Eskin's supple English. But more than that: this is a volume with a mission. In reckoning with the possibilities of poetry, it sets out to show us a better way of being in the world: "a guide to thinking and feeling with precision." Written by one of the most exciting and thought-provoking writers of the moment, THE VOCATION OF POETRY is essential reading for anyone interested in modern poetry or in modern life.

"A Meteor of Intelligent Substance" "Something was Missing in our Culture, and Here It Is" Liberties - A Journal of Culture and Politics features new essays and poetry from some of the world's best writers and artists to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of our current culture and today's politics. This summer issue of Liberties includes: Elliot Ackerman on Veterans Are Not Victims; Durs Grunbein on Fascism and the Writer; R.B. Kitaj's Three Tales; Thomas Chatterton Williams on The Blessings of Assimilation; Anita Shapira on The Fall of Israel's House of Labor; Sally Satel on Woke Medicine; Matthew Stephenson On Corruption's Honey and Poison; Helen Vender on Wallace Stevens; David Haziza on Illusions of Immunity; Paul Berman on the Library of America; Clara Collier's nostalgia for strong women in film; Michael Kimmage on American Inquisitions; Leon Wieseltier (editor) on the high price of Stoicism; Celeste Marcus (managing editor) on a Native American Tragedy; and new poetry from Adam Zagajewski, A.E. Stallings, and Peg Boyers.

"A Meteor of Intelligent Substance" "Something was Missing in our Culture, and Here It Is" "Liberties is THE place to be." Liberties, a journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues and causes of our time. Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and leaders throughout the world; new poetry; and, introduces the next generation of writers and voices to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today's culture and politics. In this issue of Liberties: Laura Kipnis on Genders Without Fear; Dorian Abbot's call to arms - Science to Politics: Drop Dead; Bernard Henri-Levy on What is Reading?; Bruce D. Jones on today's reality of Taiwan, China, America; David Greenberg examines The War on Objectivity; Helen Vendler on Art vs. Stereotypes through the work of Marianne Moore; Ingrid Rowland captures Thucydides on our Conflicts; David A. Bell exposes the Greatest Enemy of Democracy in France; Robert Cooper reports on Myanmar, Atrocity in the Garden of Eden; Steven M. Nadler on Bans and Excommunications, Then and Now; Morten Hoi Jensen on the State of Literary Biography; Clara Collier on Women with Whips - Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck; Celeste Marcus on Unknown Heroes of Modern Art; Leon Wieseltier reveals Christianism in Modern Politics; and, new poetry from Durs Grunbein, Nathaniel Mackey, and Haris Vlavianos.

Poetically written and originally given as lectures, this is a moving essay collection from Durs Grunbein. In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, German poet Durs Grunbein dealt with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since he began to perceive his own position within the past of his nation, his linguistic community, and his family: How is it possible that history can determine the individual poetic imagination and segregate it into private niches? Shouldn't poetry look at the world with its own sovereign eyes instead? In the form of a collage or "photosynthesis," in image and text, Grunbein lets the fundamental opposition between poetic license and almost overwhelming bondage to history appear in an exemplary way. From the seeming trifle of a stamp with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, he moves through the phenomenon of the "Fuhrer's streets" and into the inferno of aerial warfare. In the end, Grunbein argues that we are faced with the powerlessness of writing and the realization, valid to this day, that comes from confronting history. As he muses, "There is something beyond literature that questions all writing."

Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Grunbein is the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany, a place where, he wrote, 'the best refuge was a closed mouth.' In unsettling, often funny, sometimes savage lines whose vivid images reflect his deep love for and connection with the visual arts, Grunbein is reinventing German poetry and taking on the most pressing moral concerns of his generation. Brilliantly edited and translated by Michael Hofmann, The Selected Poems of Durs Grunbein introduces Germany's most highly acclaimed contemporary poet to a British audience. 'Grunbein is a truly cosmopolitan poet . . . creating poetry which, however subtly, participates in and facilitates Germany's sustained attempts to reconfigurating and redefining itself in post-Cold War Europe.' Michael Eskin, Times Literary Supplement

Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Grunbein is the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany, a place where, he wrote, "the best refuge was a closed mouth." In unsettling, often funny, sometimes savage lines whose vivid images reflect his deep love for and connection with the visual arts, Grunbein is reinventing German poetry and taking on the most pressing moral concerns of his generation. Brilliantly edited and translated by the English poet Michael Hofmann, "Ashes for Breakfast "expertly introduces Germany's most highly acclaimed contemporary poet to American readers.