Reposting this link to some beautiful English translations of the poems of Swiss poet Erika Burkart.
Now online at Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics:
“Fragments, Shards and Visions” — on the Swiss poet Erika Burkart
Introductory essay by Marc Vincenz and interview with Ernst Halter, Burkart’s widower.
The following prose by Erika Burkart is translated from the German by Andrea Scrima from Am Fenster, wo die Nacht einbricht. Erika Burkart, Aufzeichnungen, ed. Ernst Halter, Zürich: Limmat Verlag.
Childhood / Ninepins and a Thunderstorm
Ninepins. They’re playing ninepins, said my father, as above us the sky’s protective vault shook with the muffled rumblings of thunder. Who dared to hold a game of ninepins in the House of Angels? They did, blithely unconcerned about turning the cathedral into a wooden heaven. Elfi, our waitress, said a wooden heaven was just a room full of drunken men.
The ninepin lane took up the northeast corner of the garden terrace: because of their finger holes, in which I saw…
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