The spokesman for defenceless fringe of civilization

Peter Huchel

Huchel, Peter (Berlin-Lichterfelde, 1903-81, Staufen, Baden), studied from 1923 to 1926 in Berlin, Freiburg, and Vienna, travelled extensively, and in the 1930s contributed a number of radio plays to Berlin's radio station. Called up in 1940, he became in 1945 a Russian prisoner of war, but was released to work for the Soviet-controlled radio station (Berlin), whose cultural director he became.

In 1949 he was appointed editor-in-chief of the newly founded literary periodical Sinn and Fum, which soon bore the stamp of his own cultural vision. His inadequate orthodoxy, however, led to his enforced resignation and subsequent isolation and surveillance; in 1971 he was at last allowed to move to the West.Huchel's poetry is deeply imbued with the image and spirit of the landscape of the Mark Brandenburg, in which he spent his childhood and youth; at the same time this region shaped his social consciousness, which became an integral part of his perception of nature.

The pervasive melancholy mood of his poetry with its prevalence of bleak images and shadows focuses on diverse country folk, poor despite toil and resigned to their lot. To Huchel they came to represent the defenceless fringe of civilization. As his experience of a dehumanized world deepened, he found his metaphors in the exposed marches, where nature follows its perpetual reciprocal cycle of devouring: ‘Die Natur war für mich Fressen und Gefressenwerden’ (‘Die Nachbarn’ is a late example).

With the same clear-cut departure from customary associations he integrates biblical, mythical, and literary motifs, from which his poetry derives both variety and cohesion. ‘Atmet noch schwach, / Durch die Kehle des Schilfrohrs, / Der vereiste Fluß?’ read the last three lines of ‘Winterpsalm’. At the same time such expressions of numb paralysis allude to specific spheres of experience even when these are not directly addressed.

In ‘Polybios’ the Greek chronicler of Antiquity, pointing to a fallen warrior, consigns the inexpressible to the metaphor of the thistle (‘Hier liegt einer, / Der wollte noch singen / Mit einer Distel im Mund’), which, a key to the hermetic verse of his late poetry, is resumed in ‘Unter der Wurzel der Distel’ (‘Wohnt nun die Sprache’).

The vision of death and oblivion is nowhere more immediate than in the tightly wrought verse of ‘Schnee’; but, dedicated to the memory of Hans Henny Jahnn, it is also a statement on the function of art. Special significance attaches to the recurring motif of the highroad (Chaussee), witness to the ravages of war and its refugees.After Der Knabenteich (1932), the first post-war volume, Gedichte, appeared in 1948, Chausseen Chausseen in 1963, Die Sternenreuse in 1967, Gezählte Tage in 1972, and Die neunte Stunde in 1979. Huchel was awarded a number of honours, notably the Austrian Staatspreis for European Literature (1971).

His influence as a leading contributor to modern verse is marked by the Peter Huchel Prize for Lyric Poetry, whose recipients include Sarah Krisch (1993). Correspondence with Hans Henny Jahnn, Briefwechsel 1951-1959, appeared in 1974; Gesammelte Werke (2 vols.), ed. A. Vieregg, in 1984. Huchel edited the first posthumous volume of poetry by Marie Luise Kaschnitz (Gedichte, 1975).
Life

Huchel studied literature and philosophy in Berlin, Freidburg and Vienna. Between 1927 and 1930 he travelled to France, Romania, Hungary and Turkey. In 1930, he changed his first name to Peter and befriended Ernst Bloch, Alfred Kantorowicz and Fritz Sternberg. His early poems, published from 1931 to 1936, are strongly marked by the atmosphere and landscape of Brandenburg.

In 1934, Huchel married Dora Lassel. The couple divorced in 1946 and Huchel married Monica Rosental in 1953. Between 1934 and 1940, Huchel wrote plays for German radio. During the Second World War, he served as a soldier until he was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1945.

After his release, he began working for East German radio and in 1949, he became editor of the influential poetry magazine Sinn und Form ("Sense and Form"). After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Huchel came under attack from the East German authorities and the following year he was forced to resign the editorshop of Sinn und Form. From 1962 to 1971, he lived in isolation under Stasi (secret service) surveillance in his house in Wilhelmshorst near Berlin. In 1971, he was finally permitted to leave the German Democratic Republic and move, first to Rome, then to Staufen im Breiscau, where he later died.
Peter Huchel

Huchel, Peter (Berlin-Lichterfelde, 1903-81, Staufen, Baden), studied from 1923 to 1926 in Berlin, Freiburg, and Vienna, travelled extensively, and in the 1930s contributed a number of radio plays to Berlin's radio station. Called up in 1940, he became in 1945 a Russian prisoner of war, but was released to work for the Soviet-controlled radio station (Berlin), whose cultural director he became.

In 1949 he was appointed editor-in-chief of the newly founded literary periodical Sinn and Fum, which soon bore the stamp of his own cultural vision. His inadequate orthodoxy, however, led to his enforced resignation and subsequent isolation and surveillance; in 1971 he was at last allowed to move to the West.Huchel's poetry is deeply imbued with the image and spirit of the landscape of the Mark Brandenburg, in which he spent his childhood and youth; at the same time this region shaped his social consciousness, which became an integral part of his perception of nature.

The pervasive melancholy mood of his poetry with its prevalence of bleak images and shadows focuses on diverse country folk, poor despite toil and resigned to their lot. To Huchel they came to represent the defenceless fringe of civilization. As his experience of a dehumanized world deepened, he found his metaphors in the exposed marches, where nature follows its perpetual reciprocal cycle of devouring: ‘Die Natur war für mich Fressen und Gefressenwerden’ (‘Die Nachbarn’ is a late example).

With the same clear-cut departure from customary associations he integrates biblical, mythical, and literary motifs, from which his poetry derives both variety and cohesion. ‘Atmet noch schwach, / Durch die Kehle des Schilfrohrs, / Der vereiste Fluß?’ read the last three lines of ‘Winterpsalm’. At the same time such expressions of numb paralysis allude to specific spheres of experience even when these are not directly addressed.

In ‘Polybios’ the Greek chronicler of Antiquity, pointing to a fallen warrior, consigns the inexpressible to the metaphor of the thistle (‘Hier liegt einer, / Der wollte noch singen / Mit einer Distel im Mund’), which, a key to the hermetic verse of his late poetry, is resumed in ‘Unter der Wurzel der Distel’ (‘Wohnt nun die Sprache’).

The vision of death and oblivion is nowhere more immediate than in the tightly wrought verse of ‘Schnee’; but, dedicated to the memory of Hans Henny Jahnn, it is also a statement on the function of art. Special significance attaches to the recurring motif of the highroad (Chaussee), witness to the ravages of war and its refugees.After Der Knabenteich (1932), the first post-war volume, Gedichte, appeared in 1948, Chausseen Chausseen in 1963, Die Sternenreuse in 1967, Gezählte Tage in 1972, and Die neunte Stunde in 1979. Huchel was awarded a number of honours, notably the Austrian Staatspreis for European Literature (1971).

His influence as a leading contributor to modern verse is marked by the Peter Huchel Prize for Lyric Poetry, whose recipients include Sarah Krisch (1993). Correspondence with Hans Henny Jahnn, Briefwechsel 1951-1959, appeared in 1974; Gesammelte Werke (2 vols.), ed. A. Vieregg, in 1984. Huchel edited the first posthumous volume of poetry by Marie Luise Kaschnitz (Gedichte, 1975).
Life

Huchel studied literature and philosophy in Berlin, Freidburg and Vienna. Between 1927 and 1930 he travelled to France, Romania, Hungary and Turkey. In 1930, he changed his first name to Peter and befriended Ernst Bloch, Alfred Kantorowicz and Fritz Sternberg. His early poems, published from 1931 to 1936, are strongly marked by the atmosphere and landscape of Brandenburg.

In 1934, Huchel married Dora Lassel. The couple divorced in 1946 and Huchel married Monica Rosental in 1953. Between 1934 and 1940, Huchel wrote plays for German radio. During the Second World War, he served as a soldier until he was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1945.

After his release, he began working for East German radio and in 1949, he became editor of the influential poetry magazine Sinn und Form ("Sense and Form"). After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Huchel came under attack from the East German authorities and the following year he was forced to resign the editorshop of Sinn und Form. From 1962 to 1971, he lived in isolation under Stasi (secret service) surveillance in his house in Wilhelmshorst near Berlin. In 1971, he was finally permitted to leave the German Democratic Republic and move, first to Rome, then to Staufen im Breiscau, where he later died.
Some poems

Eastern River by Peter Huchel

Do not look for the stones

in water above the mud,

the boat is gone.

No longer with nets and baskets

the river is dotted.

The sun wick,

the marsh marigold flickered out in rain.

Only the willow still bears witness,

in its roots

the secrets of tramps lie hidden,

their paltry treasures,

a rusty fishhook,

a bottle full of sand,

a tine with no bottom,

in which to preserve

conversations long forgotten.

On the boughs,

empty nests of the penduline titmice

,shoes light as birds.

No one slips them

over children's feet.
Answer by Peter Huchel

Between two nightsthe brief day.

The farm is there.

And in the thicket, a snare

the hunter set for us.

Noon’s desert.

It still warms the stone.

Chirping in the wind,

buzz of a guitardown the hillside.

The slow match

of withered foliage

glows against the wall.

Salt-white air.

Fall’s arrowheads,

the crane’s migration.

In bright tree limbs

the tolling hour has faded.

Upon their clockwork

spiders lay

the veils of dead brides.

Meeting by Peter Huchel
For Michael Hamburger

Barn owl

daughter of snow,

subject to the night wind,

yet taking root

with her talons

in the rotten scab of walls,

beak face

with round eyes,

heart-rigid mask

of feathers a white fire

that touches neither time nor space.

Coldly the wind blows

against the old homestead,

in the yard pale folk,

sledges, baggage, lamps covered with snow,

in the pots death,

in the pitchers poison,

the last will nailed to a post.

The hidden thing

under the rocks' claws,

the opening into night,

the terror of death thrust into flesh

like stinging salt.

Let us go down

in the language of angels

to the broken bricks of Babel.

Melpomene by Peter Huchel
The forest bitter, spiky,

no shore breeze, no foothills,

the grass grows matted, death will come

with horses' hooves, endlessly

over the steppes' mounds, we went back,

searching the sky for the fort

that could not be razed.

The villages hostile,

the cottages cleared out in haste,

smoked skin on the attic beams,

snare netting, bone amulets.

All over the country an evil reverence,

animals' heads in the mist, divination

by willow wands.

Later, up in the North,

stag-eyed men

rushed by on horseback.

We buried the dead.

It was hard

to break the soil with our axes,

fir had to thaw it out.

The blood of sacrificed cockerels

was not accepted.