Poets and Their Places [by Tami Haaland]

My time in Germany is coming to a close, and for the past week I’ve been conflicted each day about whether to stay in Ludwigsburg or head out on the train to other parts of Germany, France, or Switzerland. In Ludwigsburg, I can walk through Favoritepark and the palace botanical garden on my way to downtown or choose a slightly different direction and stroll the palace gardens of Monrepos. The town has become familiar to me now, and I like having my small apartment as a home base. On the other hand, I would like to see as much as possible before I go back to Montana. The Favoritepark train platform is three minutes away. I can take the S4 to Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof (main station), and from there, a person can go anywhere. With the Deutsche Bahn phone app, it’s a breeze to buy an inexpensive ticket.   

Last Tuesday I visited Strasbourg, just over the French border. The town has a long history of independence dating back several hundred years and is now the site of the European Union Parliament. When I arrived at the main station, I asked for directions at the information desk, and it was easy from there. I walked along cobblestone streets until I arrived at Strasbourg Cathedral, distinct from many other cathedrals because of its pink stone.  Once inside I sat near a pillar for some time thinking about who had been there, who was here now, how many hands over how many years contributed to this stunning space. 

Among its regular visitors, for a time, was Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe. He spent a year studying law at the University in Strasbourg and made a regimen of climbing to the outside balcony of the cathedral. There he would quiet himself, then step out onto a small platform with no railing, and in this way he would address his vertigo. In his autobiography, he speaks about this exercise as a pivotal experience. It allowed him to overcome his fear of heights, which then allowed him to see and do more in his subsequent travels to Italy and elsewhere.

After I returned from Strasbourg that evening, I spent one day and part of the next walking around Ludwigsburg or staying in my apartment with notebooks and computer, sometimes glancing out the window at the train platform. Then, around noon on Thursday, I made a spur of the moment decision to go to Tübingen.

Unlike many German cities, Tübingen wasn’t bombed during World War II. Germany is a patchwork depending on where the bombs fell, with some cities almost entirely decimated and then rebuilt afterwards with simpler, unadorned surfaces. But in Tübingen, the medieval city center is still intact and lively with small shops and many bookstores leading to the university. Narrow cobblestone streets curve up and down above the Neckar River that borders the old city. The castle, high on a hill above these buildings, now belongs to the University and houses ancient art ranging from 40,000-year-old figurines carved from mammoth ivory to Egyptian sarcophagi and Greek pottery. In addition to the museum’s ancient figurines, I was especially thrilled to see one of the gold death masks from Mycenae and a sculpture of a Minotaur head from Crete.

I went to Tübingen, however, because I wanted to see where Friedrich Hölderlin lived. One of the German Romantics, he spent his university days in Tübingen with his two philosopher friends, Hegel and Schelling. Much of his work appeared prior to 1805, when his life was marked by a major shift. He was accused of treason but had a mental breakdown that left him hospitalized in Tübingen. At the end of a year, he was pronounced incurable and released. Luckily, a carpenter’s family who had read his earlier works took him into their home, where he lived in a tower on the river just below the old city. He was given three years to live but survived for thirty-nine, though his family and friends neglected him after his breakdown. In their PEN/USA Award-winning Translations of Hölderlin, Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover provide an account of his importance to contemporary literature. 

I imagine Hölderlin watching people on an adjacent island or carriages crossing the bridge. His tower would have given him a perfect view of the river and anything that passed by. I wanted to see the interior of his tower, but the museum is closed for renovations and won’t open until 2020.

Since arriving in Germany two weeks ago, I’m thinking in short German phrases and attempting longer sentences, then plugging up the holes with English. This situation would probably improve if I could stay longer. Though I don’t expect to make much headway before my reentry into the US next week, I did recently buy a poetry anthology fittingly called Deutsche Gedichte, a lovely blue hardback with shiny copper polka dots. Originally published in the 1980s, it’s been updated and re-released this year, and while I’m taken with its cover design, I’m also doing a bit of translating. In the flurry of wondering where I should go next, focusing on individual words and lines is a pleasure.

Right now, I’m working on Ingeborg Bachman’s “Mein Vogel” (“My Bird”). She opens with these lines, “Whatever happens: the devastated world / will sink back into twilight.”  Despite the devastation, I think the lines are hopeful. They have to do with the overriding presence of natural rhythms. Light returns in the morning. No matter what, twilight and darkness settle in.

As I write this, a perfect half-moon shines through my little window. Maybe I’ll go to Heidelberg on Sunday.

Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

Excellent posts, Tami. So great to have you blogging for us. -- DL

[The Best American Poetry]

<<< Among its regular visitors, for a time, was Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe. He spent a year studying law at the University in Strasbourg and made a regimen of climbing to the outside balcony of the cathedral. There he would quiet himself, then step out onto a small platform with no railing, and in this way he would address his vertigo. In his autobiography, he speaks about this exercise as a pivotal experience. It allowed him to overcome his fear of heights, which then allowed him to see and do more in his subsequent travels to Italy and elsewhere. >>>
Fascinating. Goethe was an old-fashioned genius -- truly exceptional.

[Tami Haaland]

Thanks David. It's great to be here.