Erich Fried
this site contains the german
originals
& my own translations
i hope despite my incomplete english
you get the confusing depth
of Erich Fried's verses |
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reckless artistic nature
in his circles
will be received with pleasure
to do
which won't be received with pleasure
he's doing therefore out of
which won't be received with pleasure
just which will be received with pleasure
in his circles
Unbekümmerte Künstlernatur
In seinen Kreisen
wird es gerne angesehen
wenn man tut
was nicht gerne gesehen wird
Er tut daher von dem
was nicht gerne gesehen wird
nur das was gerne gesehen wird
in seinen Kreisen
first published 1978
in '100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland' ('100 poems
without homeland')
-Vaterland- means directly translated
-fatherland-, but
-vaterlandslose gesellen- can be translated as
-unpatriotic lumps-
used in the sense of a social offense as a
knockout term to stigmatize political opposition
thus -unpatriotic- as those -without homeland-
Erich Fried lost his homeland because of the
Naziterror & had to emigrate from Austria to
Great Britain
& remained lifelong without a real homeland
neither in a geographic nor political sense,
nevertheless he felt at home within the
humanistic worldview
so -poems without homeland- are poems on the
ground of a humanistic world view & not a
patriotic or not even political or social
so those are poems without statements &
without bias, but those are also poems, which
have to be said, exactly because they have no own
space to be
Erich Fried understood himself as unbiased
supporter of freedom, especially freedom of
speech & that's the purest form of democracy
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