PARTISAN REVIEW
631
among others, Brecht's
Buckow Elegies,
one of which, "The Solution," is pre–
cisely the kind of political lyric the younger generation has taken as its model:
cold facts devoid of any attempt to depict or arouse emotion ; an appeal to
reason, not passion.
After the Uprising on June Seventeenth
The Secretary
of
the Authors' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Which said that the people
Had forfeited the Government's confidence
And could only win it back
By redoubled labor .
. .
This kind of writing is a far cry from the pathos of a Hans Magnus Enzens–
berger, and the anthology demonstrates that the younger poets of the East
have been more faithful to their master.
Of all these poets, Peter Huchel stands out as the hard-honed classic.
Readers may recall that in 1971, Huchel, for whom lifejn the DDR had been
made unbearable, was finally granted a visa. Already in 1962, he had been
ousted from his post as editor of
Sinn und Form,
for having published works by
West German poets as well as Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar." The poem, "The
Garden of Theophrastus" appeared in his last issue.
The Garden
of
Theophrastus
To my son
When at noon the white fire
of
verses
Flickering dances above the urns,
Remember, my son. Remember the vanished
Who planted their conversations like trees.
The garden is dead, more heavy my breathing,
Preserve the hour, here Theophrastus walkea,
With oak bark to feed the
Sot?
and enrich it,
To bandage with fiber the wounded bole.
An olive tree splits the brickwork grown brittle
And still is a voice in the mote-laden heat.
Their order was to fell and uproot it,
Your light is fading, defenceless leaves.
Thereafter he was forbidden publication.
Like Gunter Eich, Huchel moved away from a dreamy, idyllic view of
nature to a cosmic questioning and skepticism, all the more urgent because of
its rootedness in small earthy detail. Huchel's compressed concrete image
is
