Leaving: A Poem from the Time of the Virus - Hardcover

Nooteboom, Cees

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857428837 ISBN 13: 9780857428837

Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd, 2022

Synopsis

An exceptionally current volume of poems from one of Europe’s greatest poets that dwell on the most pressing reality of our times: the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the leading living European writers, Cees Nooteboom never shies away from contemporary issues. His latest collection of poems, Leaving, begins in a garden with descriptions of Mediterranean plants, but what emerges are memories of the war―images of a distant past that have never disappeared. The poems take another turn when, unexpectedly, a mysterious virus takes control of the world and turns life upside down.
 
A collection that can be read as a single poem, in which desolation and beauty, past and future, nostalgia and mortality all merge to represent the most mature work of a great poet. German artist Max Neumann’s haunting images that accompany the poems work as complex visual metaphors that further underline the beauty and the gravity of the poems. Together, they make for a delicate and thoughtful read.

About this title

About the Author

Cees Nooteboom is one of Europe’s leading living authors. His poetry, novels and, travel literature have been translated into many languages. Several of his books, including Light Everywhere and Monk’s Eye, are also available from Seagull Books. Max Neumann is a German artist. David Colmer is an award-winning translator.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The end of the end, the man in the winter garden<br> Asked himself, what could that be?<br> If nothing else, he thought, not any kind of sorrow.<br> He looked outside and saw a cloud that looked<br> &#160;<br> Like a cloud, as grey as lead, too heavy<br> For every balance, the bare fig against the wall<br> With the thousand-year-old stones,<br> The geese next door, their disapproval,<br> &#160;<br> The way the night needed to be set right,<br> The grammar of expropriation, nobody<br> Themselves anymore, not a single apparition,<br> Withdrawal after defeat<br> &#160;<br> But no destination.<br> &#160;<br> &#160;<br> He&#39;d seen that in the war, defeated soldiers<br> In retreat, frightened, dirty, the mouths<br> That sang so heartily when they marched in<br> Now closed. They had sung of triumph,<br> &#160;<br> Their tiny lives had suddenly expanded,<br> Fitted with new futures, victims, others<br> To maltreat, the back of the mirror,<br> Now turned again, the fate of destiny.<br> &#160;<br> He remembered it well, the humbled back<br> She saw again now. He was no army but felt<br> The lesson like a rabbit feels the hunter&#8217;s blow,<br> Imposed without mercy and<br> &#160;<br> All over.<br><br> &#160;<br> The war that never stopped coming back,<br> A guest who&#8217;s known to all, a toothless<br> Kiss, the language of intimate betrayal<br> Around him now again, remembering a past<br> &#160;<br> He couldn&#8217;t share with anyone. His father,<br> A man in a dinner suit leaning on the railing<br> Of the boulevard, his mother alongside the future<br> Deceased, already wrapped in the time to come,<br> &#160;<br> And he himself still hidden, the world a cloud<br> Without rules, and behind his parents the sea,<br> The warning no one wanted to hear, always<br> The same, the sound of indrawn breath,<br> &#160;<br> Devouring so much.<br> &#160;<br> &#160;

Edition details

• Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0857428837
• ISBN 13: 9780857428837
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Neumann Max
• Number of pages: 92