I had no idea that Edwin Muir, who along with his wife, Willa, authoritatively translated Kafka to the world for all of us until the work finally went out of copyright. If you've read Kafka prior to the 1990s, you probably read their translations. They did all of the major work for Schocken Press. I had no idea he wrote poems--and yes, good ones. This is a very good poem indeed.
Yes, indeed! I first read The Trial in the Muir translation, when Everyman Classics reprinted it in hardback. His Selected Poems are worth seeking out — T.S. Eliot was his editor at Faber and writes an introduction.
Can you believe it's five years since that strange time? I feel I lost something. It's perhaps something ppl who have experienced war/invasion might feel. We're changed, not improved, just altered in an inexplicable way but involving trust and humanity.
This poem haunts me too. I discovered it when I was writing about both the end of horse power and contemporary farmers who were going back to horse power, with all their stats on how horses were more efficient than tractors on a small farm and "you never wake up and find a baby John Deere in your paddock." The Amish have improved lots of horse-powered farming technology so there's quite a movement of organic farmers in the US doing all-but-fossil-fuel-free farming. There are also wistful calculations about how many horses would be needed to farm enough to feed America and visions of a future world that needs horses once again.
That’s a fascinating contemporary context. One reason the poem is so haunting, I think, is because it seems to take place in past, present and future all at once.
I had no idea that Edwin Muir, who along with his wife, Willa, authoritatively translated Kafka to the world for all of us until the work finally went out of copyright. If you've read Kafka prior to the 1990s, you probably read their translations. They did all of the major work for Schocken Press. I had no idea he wrote poems--and yes, good ones. This is a very good poem indeed.
Yes, indeed! I first read The Trial in the Muir translation, when Everyman Classics reprinted it in hardback. His Selected Poems are worth seeking out — T.S. Eliot was his editor at Faber and writes an introduction.
Thank you for sharing. I had never read this poem before. Thank you for walking me through!
The link to a reading is broken.
I have found one here.
https://youtu.be/oJVVDM2mpHg?si=AoTELlvUqedPnXvi
Can you believe it's five years since that strange time? I feel I lost something. It's perhaps something ppl who have experienced war/invasion might feel. We're changed, not improved, just altered in an inexplicable way but involving trust and humanity.
This poem haunts me too. I discovered it when I was writing about both the end of horse power and contemporary farmers who were going back to horse power, with all their stats on how horses were more efficient than tractors on a small farm and "you never wake up and find a baby John Deere in your paddock." The Amish have improved lots of horse-powered farming technology so there's quite a movement of organic farmers in the US doing all-but-fossil-fuel-free farming. There are also wistful calculations about how many horses would be needed to farm enough to feed America and visions of a future world that needs horses once again.
That’s a fascinating contemporary context. One reason the poem is so haunting, I think, is because it seems to take place in past, present and future all at once.