Circling the Square: Poems 2004-2006

Michael Hamburger’s fifth collection since the publication of Collected Poems 1941-1994 gathers his poems written during 2004-2006, a productive period in which he has set aside translation work to concentrate on his own poetry. His intimate knowledge of the English landscape and wildlife underpins his meditations on mortality and the passing of time in these subtle and compelling poems.

Michael Hamburger OBE was born in Berlin in 1924, and moved to Britain in 1933. In addition to his many books of poetry, he has published several collections of essays, a study of modernist poetry since Baudelaire, The Truth of Poetry, and an autobiography. He has translated from, among others, Goethe, Hölderlin, Rilke and Celan. His awards include the Goethe Medal of the German Federal Republic for services to German literature and the European Community’s first European Translation Prize for Poems of Paul Celan, now reissued in its third edition.