The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
Page 93
[Der nur Nachahmende]
BFA 15, 166; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
In the natural shyness of children . . .
[In der natürlichen Scham der Kinder]
BFA 15, 169; c. 1945; P1993; T.K.
You must never slough off from the peasant . . .
[Niemals sollt ihr vom Bauern abstreifen]
BFA 15, 169; c. 1945; P1993; T.K.
Purging the theatre of illusions
[Reinigung des Theaters von den Illusionen]
BFA 15, 170; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
This fragmentary poem may have been intended as the second in the group initiated by ‘The theatre, place of dreams.’
Behold the ease . . .
[Seht doch die Leichtigkeit]
BFA 15, 171; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
This and the next three belong in the context of Buying Brass (Der Messingkauf).
O joy of beginning!
[O Lust des Beginnens!]
BFA 15, 171; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
In saying yes . . .
[Indem er ja sagt]
BFA 15, 172; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
See with what wonderful movement . . .
[Seht, mit wundervoller Bewegung]
BFA 15, 172; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
On empathy
[Über die Einfühlung]
BFA 15, 173; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
On the critical attitude
[Über die kritische Haltung]
BFA 15, 174; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
Even the bravest man . . .
[So auch der tapfere Mensch]
BFA 15, 172; c. 1945; P1967; T.K.
This is possibly part of Brecht’s sketches in the context of the versification of the Communist Manifesto, although in this case the classicizing but very irregular verse form often stretches to heptameters, rather than hexameters.
Song of the Hours (from the 17th century)
[Das Stundenlied (aus dem 17. Jahrhundert)]
BFA 15, 176; 1946; P1948; D.C.
Brecht’s very close rewriting of a sixteenth-century hymn by Michael Weisse, ‘Christus, der uns selig macht,’ which itself derives from a Latin text of the fourteenth century. Paul Dessau set Brecht’s version for the premiere of Mother Courage, in Berlin, January 1949, to be sung by the Army Chaplain. In the event it was not performed. Brecht felt that with the actors and audience at his disposal the song would not have had the desired effect.
Epitaph
[Epitaph]
BFA 15, 178; 1946; P1957; D.C.
This is one of many epitaphs in Brecht’s poetry and is, like several others, for himself, for his own life so far.
Epitaph for Mayakovsky
[Epitaph für Majakowski]
BFA 15, 178; after 1948; P1964; D.C.
A rewriting, possibly in the 1950s, of the previous poem. Brecht admired Mayakovsky for his commitment to socialism and his uneasy dealings with the state. The epitaph still serves as Brecht’s own: the mortal dangers he came through to reach relative safety in exile and his difficulties with authority in the United States and the GDR. The German word Wanze means, like the English “bug,” both pest and listening device. In 1928–29 Mayakovski wrote a satirical play called Klop (Die Wanze in German, The Bedbug in English).
The tough grey goose
[Die haltbare Graugans]
BFA 15, 178; 1946; P1950; D.C.
Brecht’s free version of the Lead Belly song ‘Grey Goose.’ It was set by Paul Dessau in Hollywood in 1947 and by Hanns Eisler in Berlin in 1955.
Letter to the actor Charles Laughton concerning the work on the play Life of Galileo
[Brief an den Schauspieler Charles Laughton]
BFA 15, 179; c. 1946; P1964; D.C.
This and the next poem are fragments and were perhaps intended to become one poem. In 1945–47 Brecht and Laughton worked together on Galileo, for a production in Los Angeles.
Our peoples were still tearing one another to pieces . . .
[Noch zerfleischten sich unsere Völker]
BFA 15, 180; c. 1946; P1967; D.C.
The Old Man of Downing Street (1944)
[Der alte Mann von Downing Street (1944)]
BFA 15, 180; c. 1946; P1964; D.C.
Brecht, like many in the Eastern sector, thought Churchill (and Roosevelt) bent on the restoration of the old order and on establishing, wherever possible, regimes that would act as bulwarks against Soviet Communism. Especially in Greece, this policy was pursued with considerable ruthlessness. (See also ‘On hearing the news of the Tory bloodbaths in Greece.’) “The stinker” is Mussolini.
I saw it still . . .
[Ich sah sie noch]
BFA 15, 181; c. 1946/47; P1982; D.C.
For line 2 see also ‘Wreckage’ and ‘Remembering my little teacher . . .’ (above, Part IV). By “the Great Disorder” Brecht means capitalism.
The poor man’s song
[Lied vom armen Mann]
BFA 15, 181; c. 1946/47; P1993; D.C.
Below the title Brecht wrote ‘The Pauper’—which might indicate a play or a review he thought of writing in which this poem would have been included.
Economical performance by the Master Players
[Sparsames Auftreten der Meisterschauspieler]
BFA 15, 181; c. 1946/47; P1967; D.C.
“The Dialectician” is presumably Brecht himself.
The swamp
[Der Sumpf]
BFA 15, 183; 1947; P1982; D.C.
The poem concerns the actor Peter Lorre, who early in 1947 was arrested on a drugs charge. Brecht appealed to friends to intervene on his behalf. Lorre seemed to him a typical casualty of the Hollywood “swamp.” He sent Lorre the poem and got it translated into English by Naomi Replansky. Only in her version was it known in Brecht’s lifetime. See also ‘To the actor P.L. in exile.’
Freedom and Democracy
[Freiheit und Democracy]
BFA 15, 183; 1947; P1948; D.C.
This poem is Brecht’s response to what he and many others in the East perceived to be a continuation or resumption of power by some very dubious players in the Allied sectors. (Twenty years later much the same perception contributed to the student rebellion in West Germany.) The poem is modeled on Shelley’s ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ and in early publications it had the title or subtitle ‘Der anachronistische Zug’ (‘The anachronistic procession’). Brecht had quoted from Shelley’s poem in his essay ‘Breadth and Variety of the Realist Mode’ (1938), praising him for his ability to be topical (the Peterloo Massacre of 1819) and precise (naming names), while also permitting, through allegory (“I met Murder on the way . . .”), a wider application of the particular subject. So Brecht, who in the poem ‘Thinking about Hell . . .’ called Shelley “my brother,” proceeds here.
Stanza 6: “Saddle-head” (German: Sattelkopf; clinical name: clinocephaly) is a congenital flatness or concavity of the vertex of the head. In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pathologies that shape was associated with imbecility, which is why in the work of Brecht’s friend George Grosz, men of the German ruling class have such heads.
Stanza 8: Having, by the Concordat with Hitler, so to speak bent the arms of the Cross into a swastika, the Church now straightens them out again.
Stanza 10: The Night of the Long Knives, here particularly Hitler’s elimination of the SA on the night of June 30, 1934.
Stanza 16: Der Stürmer, a virulently Nazi newspaper. Editors and patrons of this and other such publications continued working in the “free press” post-1945.
Stanza 20: Plea made by the German judiciary that since they had acted in accordance with the law as it was in the Third Reich they could not be held retrospectively guilty when that law itself was in 1945 deemed to be unjust.
Stanzas 23–24: The Nazi Women’s Union (Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft) and Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) were two of the many organizations by which all aspects of civic life were brought into line with Nazi id
eology. The KdF covered “leisure activities.”
Stanzas 26 and 28: The city on the Isar is Munich, where the Nazi Party began and had its headquarters (in the Brown House). Hitler himself awarded the city the title “Capital of the Movement” in 1935. “Mephistic” (German: mephistisch) may be a misprint or, more likely, a Brechtian neologism combining “mephitic” (foul-smelling, noxious) and “Mephistophelian.”
For the grave of Li Po
[Für das Grab des Li Po]
BFA 15, 188; 1947; P1967; D.C.
Brecht wrote this poem in Los Angeles “out of” one by Albert Brush during the rehearsals of Galileo. Brush, author of at least four volumes of poetry (the earliest published in 1923), spent time in Paris and Venice but lived most of his life in Southern California. He collaborated with Brecht and Laughton on the English Galileo. In the Broadway production (December 1947) he is credited with writing “the lyrics”! Li Po (also known as Li Bai, Li Tai-po; 701–762) belongs with Tu Fu and Po Chü-i among the greatest of the classical Chinese poets. See the collection of Chinese Poems in Part IV.
Eulenspiegel survives the War
[Eulenspiegel überlebt den Krieg]
BFA 15, 189; 1947; P1965; D.C.
Werner Fink (1905–1972) was a cabaret comedian who by cunning and good luck managed to keep himself just out of reach of the Gestapo. Brecht saw him perform in Zurich in November 1947 and gave him this poem in appreciation. The “thousand-year Reich” lasted twelve years. Till Eulenspiegel, the joker, is still going strong after five hundred (or longer: the historical figure died around 1350).
Antigone
[Antigone]
BFA 15, 191; 1948; P1948; D.C.
Brecht wrote the poem for the first performance of his Antigone in Chur on February 15, 1948. It addresses both Antigone and Helene Weigel, who played her.
Caspar Neher, the set designer, presents the elements of his Antigone-Model to the actors of the town of Chur
[Caspar Neher, der Bühnenbauer, übergibt den Schauspielern der Stadt Chur die Geräte seines Antigone-Modells]
BFA 15, 191; 1948; P1964; T.K.
To my friend, the painter
[An meinen Freund, den Maler]
BFA 15, 191; 1948; P1964; T.K.
The friendship with Caspar Neher went back to their school days in Augsburg. Neher made a crucial contribution to the development of the look of Brecht’s “epic theater” in the 1920s. He also made a drawing of “Hydatopyranthropos,” a mythological water-fire-man whom they conceived together. It survives in the materials of the Domestic Breviary. There was evidently also a giant version, painted directly onto the wall of Brecht’s Munich student digs.
To my friend, the painter (2)
[An meinen Freund, den Maler (2)]
BFA 15, 192; 1948; P1964; T.K.
Brecht refers to two wooden panels painted by Neher. See also ‘The teach-me-better.’
The plum song
[Das Pflaumenlied]
BFA 15, 192; 1948; P1950; T.K.
Written for the Zurich premiere of Mr Puntila and His Man Matti, June 1948. Paul Dessau provided music derived from the song ‘When It’s Springtime in the Rockies.’
The friends
[Die Freunde]
BFA 15, 192; 1948; P1964; T.K.
Sauna and sex
[Saune und Beischlaf]
BFA 15, 193; 1948; P1982; T.K.
In his notebook Brecht signed this and the following poem “Thomas Mann.”
On the seduction of angels
[Über die Verführung von Engeln]
BFA 15, 193; 1948; P1982; Michael Morley.
Berlin 1948
[Berlin 1948]
BFA 15, 195; 1948; P1982; D.C.
When I came home again . . .
[Als ich kam in die Heimat]
BFA 15, 195; 1948; P1964; D.C.
Inscription on Liebknecht’s grave
[Grabschrift Liebknecht]
BFA 15, 196; 1948; P1949; D.C.
This and the following poem were commissioned by the Berliner Rundfunk (in the Soviet sector) to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary (January 15, 1949) of the murders of Liebknecht and Luxemburg and set to music by Paul Dessau.
Inscription on Luxemburg’s tomb
[Grabschrift Luxemburg]
BFA 15, 196; 1948; P1949; D.C.
It seems that some in the Berliner Rundfunk objected to line 3 and gave as their reason “a widespread sensitivity” concerning Jews. See Brecht’s Journal, January 2, 1949.
The FDJ’s Song of rebuilding
[Aufbaulied der F.D.J.]
BFA 15, 196; 1948; P1949; D.C.
The Party asked Brecht to think again about Stanza 5, line 2, on the grounds that nobody was interested in Hitler anymore and that the Party itself now would lead the way. He refused. The FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend/Free German Youth), founded in 1936, survived the war in exile and then became the GDR’s official youth movement. (See also ‘Report from Herrnburg,’ below.)
Song of the future
[Das Zukunftslied]
BFA 15, 197; 1948; P1949; D.C.
Brecht wrote the song because, in his view, education in the new GDR (not yet even formally founded) was “too local” and the red flag had fallen into disrepute (Journal, December 22, 1948).
Few words
[Sparsamkeit der Wörter]
BFA 15, 199; 1948; P1993; D.C.
Jews
[Juden]
BFA 15, 200; c. 1948; P1993; D.C.
On his way home out of exile, Brecht visited the Jewish cemetery in Prague. This poem may have come from that visit.
Unless I am forced to . . .
[Wenn ich nicht gezwungen werde]
BFA 15, 200; c. 1948; P1982; D.C.
The Führer will tell you . . .
[Der Führer wird euch erzählen]
BFA 15, 200; c. 1948; P1958; D.C.
Brecht wrote the poem for inclusion in the ‘German War Primer’ section of a proposed collection, Gedichte im Exil (Poems in Exile), which did not in the end get published.
Through shattered ribs . . .
[Mühsam atmend]
BFA 15, 200; c. 1948; P1982; D.C.
The subject may be Berlin and the acts of sexual violence that were perpetrated when the city was taken.
It was on us, not England, they wrote finis
[Nicht Engelland, uns machten sie kaputt]
BFA 15, 200; c. 1948; P1982; D.C.
The people live on . . .
[Das Volk nährt sich]
BFA 15, 201; c. 1948; P1982; D.C.
In the third of its wars with Rome, Carthage was utterly destroyed. Back in Berlin, Brecht several times alludes to this warning from history—in the following poem, for example.
The city
[Die Stadt]
BFA 15, 202; c. 1948–49; P1982; D.C.
There is a gap between the first couplet and the second which Brecht perhaps intended to fill.
We sixty pent in a barn . . .
[Uns 60 trieben sie]
BFA 15, 201; c. 1948; P1982; D.C.
And now step out . . .
[Und jetzt trete]
BFA 15, 203; 1949; P1967; T.K.
Written for Helene Weigel for the premiere of Mother Courage at the Deutsches Theater on January 11, 1949.
The rulers
[Die Herrschenden]
BFA 15, 203; 1949; P1982; D.C.
The poem, perhaps referring to a photograph, reads like the quatrains in Brecht’s War Primer.
Through the ruins of Luisenstrasse . . .
[Durch die Trümmer der Luisenstrasse]
BFA 15, 203; 1949; P1982; D.C.
From 1949 the Berliner Ensemble had its office on Luisenstrasse.
The guns are silent . . .
[Verstummt ist das Geschütz]
BFA 15, 205; 1949; P1982; D.C.
Brecht wrote these lines for The Days of the Commune but did not include them in the finished text.
A realization
[Wahrnehmung]
BFA 15, 205; 1949; P1964; D.C.
A new house
[Ein neues Haus]
BFA 15, 205; 1949; P1964; D.C.
Brecht pasted the poem into his Journal on May 7, 1949. The house was in Berlin-Weissensee, Berliner Allee 190. Some of his belongings, among them the Noh masks, the scroll of the Doubter, and manuscripts, had just arrived from Sweden and Moscow, places of his exile. For the Doubter see the poem of that name, above.
To my compatriots
[And meine Landsleute]
BFA 15, 205; 1949; P1949; D.C.
Brecht sent the poem on November 2, 1949, to Wilhelm Pieck, shortly after he became president of the newly established German Democratic Republic. It was first published, that same year, in the Demokratische Post (Mexico City) and The German American (New York).
To the producers and audience of The Lindbergh Flight
[An die Veranstalter und Hörer des Lindberghflugs]
BFA 15, 207; 1949; P1993; D.C.
Brecht celebrated Lindbergh’s flight in a radio play of 1929 having the title The Flight of the Lindberghs, the plural indicating the collective nature of the pilot’s achievement. When in December 1949 the Süddeutscher Rundfunk asked permission to broadcast the work again, Brecht agreed, but only on condition that Lindbergh’s name be expunged from the text, since in the view of many he had been decidedly pro-Nazi before and during the war. He also insisted that this poem should be read as a prologue to the performance and that the play should have the title Der Ozeanflug (The Flight Across the Ocean). In the event the broadcast did not take place.
When the city lay dead . . .
[Als die Stadt nun tot lag]
BFA 15, 208; 1949; P1965; D.C.
When our cities lay in ruins . . .
[Als unsere Städte in Schutt lagen]
BFA 15, 208; 1949; P1965; D.C.
Finding a use for everything
[Aus allem etwas machen]
BFA 15, 208; 1949; P1949; D.C.
Except this star, there is nothing . . .
[Ausser diesem Stern]
BFA 15 209; 1949; P1965; D.C.