I've written about the (British) American poet Denise Levertov and her love of Rilke's poetry – which informed her work since she began writing poetry in the 1940s. I don't know how many other German poets she was familiar with, but shortly before her death in 1997 she wrote this poem: Thinking about Paul Celan. We know that Denise Levertov thought and wrote about the Holocaust, and was moved by the paintings of Anselm Kiefer. Undoubtedly she knew Kiefer's painting Margarethe, which was inspired by Paul Celan's great poem Todesfuge. In her Celan poem, Levertov alludes to the poet's suicide ("You at last could endure no more.") and contrasts that to the survivors who are able to go on – even flourish – amidst the pain and suffering – blithely "exceeding out allotted days." Interestingly, Levertov "christianizes" Celan. Levertov was the daughter of a Hassidic Jewish scholar, but converted to Roman Catholicism late in life.
THINKING ABOUT PAUL CELAN
Saint Celan,
stretched on the cross
of survival,
pray for us. You
at last could endure
no more. But we
live and live,
blithe in a world.
where children kill children.
We shake off
the weight of
our own exemption,
we flourish,
we exceed
our allotted days.
Saint Celan,
pray for us
that we receive
at least a bruise,
blue, blue, unfading,
we who accept survival.
