"Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning……" — Paul Celan
"Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?"
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Paul Celan
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27 Quotes by Paul Celan
Paul Celan has 27 quotes on this site.
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A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out…
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Poetry is a sort of homecoming.
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Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
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I went with my very being toward language.
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He speaks truly who speaks the shade.
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Death is a master from Germany.
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Spring: trees flying up to their birds
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With wine and being lost, with less and less of both: I rode through the snow, do you read me…
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Each arrow you shoot off carries its own target into the decidedly secret tangle
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rush of pine scent (once upon a time), the unlicensed conviction there ought to be another way of saying this.
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Don't sign your name between worlds, surmount the manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain, learn to live.
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Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained…
See all 27 quotes by Paul Celan »
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