Book record
Out of the dust
Klaus Merz
Translated from German by Marc Vincenz
Out of the dust, by Klaus Merz and translated by Marc Vincenz from German, brings Swiss German-language poetry into English through Klaus Merz's dust, miniature form, and Swiss restraint sharpened until almost nothing becomes enough. 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 dust, brevity, silence, and the kind of small poem that leaves a large afterimage, 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. Out of the dust belongs in the translated poetry library because it adds a Swiss German-language poetics of compression and patience.
- Published
- 2014
- Publisher
- Spuyten Duyvil
- Language
- German
- Country
- Switzerland
- ISBN
- 9780923389093