BOOKS
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by Mark Anderson are good despite the poems sometimes suffering
from a flattened cadence devoid of the rhythms which connect
Bachmann to the classical tradition in German. Yet the contempt
and sorrow still remain, such as here in "Message":
From the cadaverous warmth of heaven's vestibule
the sun appears .
There are no immortal souls up there,
only the war dead. Or so we hear.
And light pays no heed to decay . Our godhead,
History, has reserved us a grave
from which there is no resurrection.
For Bachmann, history not only promises us nothing more than a
grave but also presents us with a life consisting of "Mortgaged Time"
(the title poem from her first collection) where the only certainty is
that "Harder days are coming ." Severe and defiant, hers is a voice
unwilling to settle for a comfortable refuge within poetry, her out–
rage at the existence of suffering reaching such a pitch that at times it
embodies an expressionism bordering on the surreal, reminiscent of
Trakl , and evident here in "Early Noon":
Where Germany's sky blackens the earth
its beheaded angel seeks a grave for its hate
and hands you the bowl of its heart.
A handful of pain is lost over the hill.
Bachmann's ability here to make phrases like "the bowl of its heart"
and "handful of pain" function as both concrete and abstract terms il–
lustrates her finest strength as a poet, namely a talent to aim at the
discussion of sweeping historical issues while also retaining a sense of
mystery within particulars.
Yet Bachmann was also sensitive enough to have learned early
that such outrage cannot remain focused on anyone issue or era
without the poetry becoming derivative of its own subject matter. It
is no surprise then that poems from her second collection are wider–
ranging, at times more abstract, but also more mature because they
deal with the poet herself. In the middle of "Curriculum Vitae,"
Bachmann sets down her ideas about relations between the sexes
while at the same time introducing her own more personal note:
