"Short Talk on Todtnauberg," and "Deep Past" - Paul Celan's visit to Martin Heidegger

 

"Short Talk on Todtnauberg," written by this year's Nobel laureate Anne Carson, is based on the poet Paul Celan’s visit to the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Short Talk on Todtnauberg: Anne Carson

Celan came up the mountain to visit the philosopher.
He came on a wooden cart and was surrounded by a snowstorm.
He felt ashamed.
Shame is unreasonable.
The philosopher was unashamed.
He kept whistling.
Snow was blinding them both.
In the Hütte (hut, cabin, refuge, shelter, small house built of readily available materials) there was only one chair, a hard chair.
Snow.
I destroy, I destroy, I destroy, sang Death, dressed and ready.
Celan loaded his cart and started back down.
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There is an English poem—titled "Deep Past"—written by a Malayali author, which evokes the memories surrounding Paul Celan’s visit to Martin Heidegger.This poem was written by P.V. Anilkumar, who writes under the pen name 'a/nil'. It is included in his book, The Absent Color. The blurb written by Slavoj Žižek for this collection reads as follows: ''The Absent Color'' is an authentic miracle : deep philosophical insights clearly rendered in poetic language ''

Deep Past - a/nil

( ''Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything it remained secure against loss.But it had to go through its own lack of answers, through terrifying silence, through the thousand darkness of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening, but went through it'' - Paul Celan )

Long ago
In the insurmountable silence and aloneness
Of my homeless nights
I always came back to you
In search of a dialogue
I talked to you over and over
In desperation, in delirious fever
You gave me no answers
You were a shadow outside language
Homeless within language, nothing

That was when I thought I would paint you in watercolor
And I did it in black and red
Incarcerating you in hexagonals, many
The portrait behind the television
Raised many eyebrows
One day I overheard mother telling an aunt
''He is a poet whose family was finished in Hitler's time''
Coincidence, I let your portrait perish
And calmly watched over my growing

Inability at painting
Till she wrote in her poem
That she wanted to see love in my always trembling hands
On the one hand, there is nothing
On the other, there is trembling

Unseen tears disburdening
One thing still missing
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Below, I have provided the excerpts from an article I wrote for The Wire Online - a review of a/nil’s book - in which this poem is discussed.