A collection of poems focusing on Sarmatia, an ancient name for a part of Eastern Europe near Russia, dealing with the guilty spirits of this place that the author loved as a child, and helped destroy as part of the Nazi army. Bobrowski's first book of poems was published in 1961, yet by the time the East German died four years later at 48, he had been recognized as a rising star in the literary universe. This collection of his work bears a title that will cause it to be confused with Shadow Land (1966), but that is its only failing. Bobrowski demonstrates a vibrant lyricism and masterly style. His subjects--such things as birch trees, wolves, and swan feathers--usually seem diminutive and minor, but with these spare images he invokes tradition and a larger image of his personal and political world. These are poems to be read aloud and savored for their contradictory combination of energy and calm. Elizabeth Gunderson Above The River Always To Be Named The Animals At Christmas Answer Arrival At The River Beachcomber Bird Routes 1957 Bird's Nest The Bird, White Blood Rain Brentano In Aschaffenburg By Day By The River Calamus Call The Call Of The Quail Calls Cathedral 1941 Childhood The Church: Comfort My Afflication Cloister Near Novgorod Counterlight Crypt/brandenburg Cathedral The Daubas Dead Language The Death Of The Wolf The Deserted House Deserted Township The Don Dryad The Duna Dylan Thomas The Eagle Easter Elder-blossom Else Lasker-schuler Encounter The End Of The Summer Night Esther Estrangement Exodus Of The Gods Experience Fire And Snow Fire And Snow The Ford French Village From The Rivers Gertrud Kolmar Gongora Graveyard Gunderode Hamann The Hawk Holderlin In Tubingen The Homeland Of The Painter Chagall House Ikons In Memory Of B.l. In The Empty Mirror In Transit J.s. Bach Jakug Bart In Ralbitz Joseph Conrad The Jura Kaunas 1941 Kolno Dance Lake Ilmen 1941 Lake Shore Lament Landscape With Birds Language The Latvian Autumn Latvian Songs Lithuanian Songs The Lithuanian Well Log-cabin The Log-cabin Above The Vilia Meadowbrook Memorial Leaf Mickiewicz Midnight Village Midstream Mobile By Calder Mourning For Jahnn Mozart Names For The Persecuted Night-swallows Nightfisher Nightway North Russian Town Novgrod (arrival Of The Saints) On The Tauric Road One Day Pike Time Place Of Fire Plain Precaution Pruzzian Elegy Reawakening Recall Report Return River Poem The Road Home The Road Of The Armies Russian Songs Sanctuary The Sarmatian Plain Sea-piece Shadow Land Silcher's Grave The Singing Swan The Spoor In The Sand Steppe Summer Cries Tale To Holty To Jawlensky To Klopstock To Nelly Sachs To The Chassid Barkan To The Jewish Dealer A.s. The Tomsk Road Town Under The Edge Of Night Undine Unsaid Village Church 1942 Village Music Village Road Villon Vilna The Volga Towns Wagon Trip The Wanderer Weathersigns When The Rooms Windmill Winter Cries Winterlight With The Songs Of Sappho With Wings With Your Voice The Wives Of The Nehrung-fishers The Word Man -- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® Johannes Bobrowski is widely regarded as the most important German poet of this century. He began to write poetry on the Eastern Front in 1941 where, as a 24-year-old German soldier in Kaunas, he saw the "slavering wolves" of the SS drive the "grey processions" over a hill to death. A prisoner-of-war in Russia until 1949, he returned to Berlin to write with a purpose: to inform his countrymen of the history and myths of Eastern Europe and to preserve the memory of his childhood home. The poems in Shadow Lands reflect Bobrowski's hope, in the words of Michael Hamburger, "that he might succeed poetically in bearing witness to that vanished world", that is, the world of Eastern Germany before the war. With an almost surreal lyrical beauty, he evokes the pre-Christian era of the gods and heroes of the ancient Prussians. The poems also resonate with the most eloquent and picturesque descriptions of Bobrowski's homeland - its rivers, its forests and quiet villages - ultimately leaving us with a sense of "the hiddenness of all perfect things". Personally intense and far-reaching, these poems have been treasured for their originality, their beauty, and their broad and lasting appeal. Used Book in Good Condition