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Both the Sicilies
and olives in black and green.
Two shades of wine,
two fatherlands:
the day called yester-
and the one called tomorrow.
Outside
my friends go by
with their several realities,
my enemies
with their common purpose.
This Issue
March 25, 2010
Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator from the German. His latest book of poems is One Lark, One Horse, and his Clarendon Lectures, Messing About in Boats, were published in 2021. He teaches at the University of Florida. (February 2023)
Günter Eich (1907–1972) was a member of Gruppe 47 and one of the leading postwar German poets. He won the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden in 1953, and Germany's major literary prize, the Büchner Preis, in 1959. Michael Hofmann edited the anthology Twentieth-Century German Poetry. His translations from Günter Eich, Angina Days: Selected Poems, will be published in April. (March 2010)
This Issue
March 25, 2010
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