Günter Kunert

Günter Kunert emigrated from East Berlin to West Germany in 1979. He is the author of seven books of poetry, the latest of which, Abtötungsverfahren (Mortification), was published last year.

Poem: ‘Zoo’

Günter Kunert, translated by Christopher Middleton, 3 September 1981

Relatives with Latin names faces of hide and plume hands of leather and horn eyes like glass you can see through to the depth of evolution where the simple feelings live fear and longing old and dark shadows

Your gaze comes back from there changed by the journey strange it looks at you as if you had no part in it now

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