Colonies of Paradise by Matthias Göritz and translated by Mary Jo Bang

This is poetry from Germany.

Colonies of Paradise by Matthias Göritz translated by Mary Jo Bang is published by Northwestern University Press. This is a Book originally written in German. This was published in 2022.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780810145818E12.

Colonies of Paradise, by Matthias Göritz and translated by Mary Jo Bang from German, brings German poetry into English through paradise as colony, Matthias Göritz’s lush dislocation, and the suspicion that utopia may already be compromised. The metadata gives the reader a doorway, but the real value is what happens once the poem begins making its own weather. I would read it for paradise, colony, desire, and the unstable beauty of places promised too brightly, not as a fixed lesson about a nation, period, or school. The best entry point is still the poem itself: the line that catches, the image that refuses to explain itself, the feeling that arrives before paraphrase. Colonies of Paradise belongs in the translated poetry library because it gives contemporary German poetry a worldly, unsettled, and sensuous register.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.