Of Things

Poetry. Translated from the German by Andrew Joron and Nick Hoff. A thicket, a manure pile, a marigold, gravel, a tomato, a cypress—award-winning Austrian poet Michael Donhauser engages in a "close reading" of natural things. His emphasis is not so much on observation and depiction as on tracing the movement from object to language. His approach is multilayered, bringing a dazzling variety of perspectives—scientific, philosophical, historical—to his deeply felt encounters with nonhuman phenomena.