There's nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.

How you die out in me: down to the last worn-out knot of breath you're there, with a splinter of life.

in the air, there your root remains, there, in the air

I went with my very being toward language.

Illegibility of this world. All things twice over. The strong clocks justify the splitting hour, hoarsely. You , clamped into your deepest part, climb out of yourself for ever.

With wine and being lost, with less and less of both: I rode through the snow, do you read me I rode God far--I rode God near, he sang, it was our last ride over the hurdled humans. They cowered when they heard us overhead, they wrote, they lied our neighing into one of their image-ridden languages.

German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.