Tscherkassy

by Joachim Sartorius

Vor dem Hotelfenster der Dnjepr,

ein Meer mit weißen Sandbänken.

Im Hotelzimmer

über akkurat durchgeschlagenen Kissen

eine Birkenallee im Winter, in Öl,

wie ich sie heute hundertmal gesehen habe,

ohne zu ermüden,

in einem flachen, rückständigen Land,

von Kriegen heimgesucht, friedlich heute,

von einer Stille, die die Sprache der Frösche

und der Störche noch stiller macht.

Keine Schiffe auf dem Dnjepr. Ich

führe so gerne hinunter nach Odessa,

wo es fröhlich ist, pontisch hell,

mit Frauen und anderen Alleen

und irrenden Wolken, spiritblau.

Cherkasy

by Joachim Sartorius

Outside the hotel window the Dnieper,

a sea with white sandbanks.

In the hotel room,

above accurately disheveled pillows

a birch-lined boulevard in winter, in oil,

as I have seen today a hundred times

without tiring,

in a flat, backward land

plagued by war, peaceful today

with a silence that renders the language of frogs

and storks more silent still.

No ships on the Dnieper. How I

would like to go down to Odessa,

where it is cheerful, Pontic-bright,

with women and other boulevards

and errant clouds, spirit-blue.

translated from German by Pauline Fan

Joachim Sartorius is one of the most distinguished poets of the German language. Born in Fürth, Germany, he grew up in Tunis, Congo, and Cameroon, and spent many years as a diplomat in New York, Prague, Istanbul, and Nicosia. He has served as the Secretary General of the Goethe Institute worldwide, as the head of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin Programme, and was the Artistic Director of the Berliner Festspiele from 2001 to 2011. He has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and Collegium Budapest and was elected a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature in 2002. Sartorius’ poetry has been collected in seven volumes, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has also published a book of essays and two travelogues. Joachim Sartorius was awarded the Paul Scheerbart Prize for his translations of contemporary American poetry. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2011.

Pauline Fan is a writer and literary translator from Malaysia. Her writings and translations have been published in Princeton University’s Inventory, Bonn University’s Orientierungen, Zeitzug, Axon: Creative Explorations and elsewhere. She has translated works by Brecht, Kafka and Kant from German into Malay, and is currently translating the poetry of Paul Celan. She has also translated poems by Georg Trakl and Else Lasker-Schüler into English. She co-edited the special volume Malay literary journal Obscura: Merapat Renggang. She is Editor of the new English-Malay literary journal, Kisah, and is the Malaysia Editor of the Berlin-based international poetry archive and network, Lyrikline. She serves as creative director of the Malaysian cultural heritage organisation, Pusaka.