Catlives: Sarah Kirsch’s "Katzenleben"

In her translator's preface, Marina Roscher tells us the work of Sarah Kirsch is a "powerful and poetic presence"—intense, with richness and density. It is an extraordinary poetry of images: pictures, scenes, seasons, of a nature … already lost to us” which this poet evokes with her exquisite ability to “convey the dreadful softly.”Two very special things to admire about these fine translations: first, the translators have kept the associational thought that goes on in these poems, so the quiet images can achieve their subtle illogical magic without any artificial linkages imposed from outside; and second, the translators have kept left-hand capitals but stripped the poems of any right-hand punctuation throughout, which seems right. The effect of these technical considerations is that the poems all have a curious suspension, as if they were going headlong towards an endless emptiness.