The Gallows Songs

A collection of dazzling, playful, and linguistically inventive poetry by one of Germany''s finest writers, in a classic translation that honors the author''s amazing verbal acrobatics. Christian Morgenstern’s Morgenstern felt that people often used their familiar language unthinkingly, without ever pausing to marvel at the glorious arbitrariness of words. Through poems chock-full of irresistible wordplay and unabashedly exuberant rhymes, he invites us to meditate--but also to med-it-nine and med-i-ten--on all the incidents and accidents of language that make the world of words so vibrant. True to the spirit of Morgenstern’s linguistic mischief, Max Knight’s translation sparkles with uncommon wit as it reinvents in English Morgenstern’s daring verbal acrobatics, and is itself a feat of poetic genius.

Autorentext

Christian Morgenstern, translated from the German by Max Knight, introduction by Samuel Titan