Selected Poems

Peter Huchel is one of the outstanding modern German poets. Unlike many others, he has not fallen under the spell of Brecht's laconic later poems. His vision is of a different order—apocalyptic and elegiac, where Brecht—even in so-called elegies—was, or tried to be, cooly and dryly matter-of-fact.

Huchel lived in East Germany until 1971 when, after considerable hardship, he was permitted to leave. With the appearance of Gezählte Tage in 1972, he received the attention and acclaim he had long merited. This present collection includes early work and a large selection of his recent poems.