"An Hourglass for Metaphors"

Oskar Pastior’s poems are legendary, his poetic abilities sweeping. The new volume of his Complete Works includes “Das Hören des Genetivs” and the famous “Gimpelschneise in die Winterreise”: the creative transformation of the “other” to fulfil his own, new objectives.

When Oskar Pastior was awarded the Büchner Prize in 2006, a wider audience became aware of who he was for the first time: the most linguistically possessed, playful and original German-language poet of our age. His life’s work is now being compiled in the Complete Works, of which this is the latest volume. Once again, Pastior draws the reader in with his inimitable use of language, forms and traditions. The volume includes not only famous poems such as “Das Hören des Genetivs”, but also his Frankfurt lectures “Das Unding an sich”, as well as many previously unpublished texts.