The Academy of American Poets
Home | View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Antschel, who wrote under the pseudonym Paul Celan, was born in Czernovitz, in Romania, on November 23, 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan grew up speaking several languages,...
More >
Adopt a Poet | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print
O Little Root of a Dream  
by Paul Celan
Translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov

O little root of a dream 

you hold me here
undermined by blood,
no longer visible to anyone,
property of death.

Curve a face
that there may be speech, of earth,
of ardor, of
things with eyes, even
here, where you read me blind,

even
here,
where you
refute me,
to the letter.



Reproduced from The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology: Selections from the 2001 Shortlist, published by House of Anansi Press. Originally from Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan. Copyright © 2000 by translators Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2008 by The Academy of American Poets.