Poem

Marcel Beyer

Side by side

Narva, bright as day

The languages are strange to me, I’m like someone
wearing carpet-slippers: but there

I am. Polymers, fur trim
and insoles: all things are near to me.

© Translation: 2004, Michael Hofmann
From: Mouth to Mouth. Contemporary German Poetry in Translation
Edited by Thomas Wohlfarth and Tobias Lehmkuhl.
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing Company: Newcastle, Australia, 2004

Narva, taghell

Die Sprachen sind mir fremd, als würde
ich Pantoffeln tragen: aber ich

bin da. Kunstfaser, Pelzbesatz und
Einlegsohlen: alle Dinge sind mir nah.

Marcel Beyer

(Germany, 1965)

Beyer was born on November 23, 1965 in Tailfingen, and studied German and English literature in Siegen. Until 1996 he lived in Cologne; since then he has been living in Dresden, moving to what was once East Germany. Beyer is a writer, editor and translator of authors like e. e. cummings, William S. Burroughs, Gertrude Stein and Michael Hofmann.

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Poems of Marcel Beyer

Narva, bright as day

The languages are strange to me, I’m like someone
wearing carpet-slippers: but there

I am. Polymers, fur trim
and insoles: all things are near to me.

© 2004, Michael Hofmann
From: Mouth to Mouth. Contemporary German Poetry in Translation
Edited by Thomas Wohlfarth and Tobias Lehmkuhl.
Publisher: 2004, Giramondo Publishing Company: Newcastle, Australia

Narva, bright as day

The languages are strange to me, I’m like someone
wearing carpet-slippers: but there

I am. Polymers, fur trim
and insoles: all things are near to me.