RobertWalser TwelvePoems TranslatedbyMichael Hamburger

[Michael Hamburger did these translations for a leaflet includedinanECMCDof Heinz Holliger’s settings of the poems.Hewastohavewrittenanintroduction,butdiedbefore he could. However, ina letter of 22May2007he sketched out whathewantedtosay;and ratherthanamplifythosenotes, weprint themhere. Theysayagooddeal about Walser, who died in 1956 after three decades in confinement, and are characteristicof Michael.]

All these poems are earlyones, fromthe one bookof poems thatWalser publishedinhislifetime. Thefirst, titlepoemof Holliger’scomposition[inGerman: ‘Beiseit’], alonemakesone thinkof Walser’s later confinement inclinics andanasylum; but, thoughhe wrotemanymorepoems inlater decades, he waswhollyhimself fromthestart. . . Walser’sworkwasdone ontheperipheryof literature, sohadnothingtodowiththe varioustrendsandmodesofthetime. Nordidhecarewhether he was a poet or writer of occasional verse. (For most of his readers he remained a writer of prose which couldn’t be classifiedeither.) I couldalsoaddsomethingabout Holliger’s