An “I” between languages. A text between the genres of poem and novel. 3 cities, 3 poems, 3 philosophers. The Austrian grandfather’s death triggers an examination of history, identity, consciousness. A life takes shape through precise particulars in short, staccato sentences. But the effort toward the concrete and definite  (“I forced myself to use main clauses, nouns, the definite article”) stands in tension with the boundlessness of thought where the city turns ship, and a flower in Vienna touches the sand dunes of North Africa.

Peter Waterhouse was born in Berlin in 1956 of an English father and an Austrian mother and studied in Vienna and Los Angeles. Long a resident of Vienna, Peter Waterhouse is one of Austria's leading poets and a noted translator from both English (Michael Hamburger, Gerard Manley Hopkins) and Italian (Andrea Zanzotto, Biagio Marin). He has received numerous prizes, including the Heimito von Doderer Prize (1997) and the H.C. Artmann Prize (2004).

More recent poetry includes Menz (2002), Prosperos Land (2001), Verloren ohne Rettung (2001). His latest publication is a novel/memoir, Krieg und Welt (2006).

Available in English: Where Are We Now (Duration Press, 1999). A Selected Poems is forthcoming from Shearsman.

“This simple reporting of simple occurrences in simple sentences leaves the reader in a vertigo of particular obervations… By refusing the habits of both “experimental poetry” and “traditional narration” Waterhouse finds untested forms of literary speech.” —Bruno Preisendörfer, Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin)

“Leaving behind causal and temporal connections, he succeeds in creating a “distance-event” as possibility of language.” —Hans Martin Henning, Frankfurter Rundschau

Forlag:
Burning Deck

ISBN:
9781886224995

Utgivelsesår:
2009

Hovedkategori:
Poesi

Språk:
Amerikansk

Lager:
10

Oversetter:
Rosmarie Waldrop

Sider:
128

Innbinding:
Heftet

Pris:
129