Evelyn Schlag has published a wide range of critically acclaimed books in her native German (poetry, prose, short stories). So far two volumes of her poems have appeared in English (with Carcanet), as well as one novel. She absolutely mesmerised me with her quiet attention to detail, her skill in talking about those tender moments that often go unnoticed.
last evening, november 1957
the bedroom stayed where it was.
the windows did not crash to the street.
there was no howling from the hills
that thundered down into the town
as mother followed father to
new york for 8 months. the child lay
in bed with her plaits cast a love-sick
look towards the mother who was still
sitting at her side.
taken up into my grandparents’ care
i will be in the very best hands said the child.
in the soaring flight of the child’s gaze
the mother’s response sank
into the heart of childhood.
on the nightstand her father laughed
white coat stethoscope round his neck.
the teddy bear slept eyes open.
kodachrome 1958
is that still her child
with the long
plaits
loose and longer than her blouse
on the doorframe she grows
another mark taller
while her mother
with her Jackie-glasses
smiles into the sun
in central park
bright blue sky
that lends the tall
white buildings
its name sky
scrapers - he she it is
while the waterfall
of shining hair
sweeps and flows
down to the hollow of the
child’s knee
white waterfall
of the storeys
of the sky-high scrapers
at back of the
beautiful mother
in new york
By Evelyn Schlag
Translated by Karen Leeder
From the sequence ‘Fotoalbum’ (‘Photo Album’)
by Evelyn Schlag
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Evelyn Schlag was born in Waidhofen an der Ybbs. Since her debut publication in 1981, she has published more than a dozen books of prose and six books of poetry, along with poetics lectures and memoirs. She received the Austrian State Prize for Literature in 2015 and the Hay Festival Medal for Poetry in 2018.
Karen Leeder is a writer and Schwarz-Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford. She is a prizewinning translator of contemporary German literature, including Evelyn Schlag, Raoul Schrott, Michael Krüger, Durs Grünbein, Volker Braun and Ulrike Almut Sandig, and has been awarded residences in the UK and Germany.