Ludwig Steinherr was born in Munich in 1962. He earned a PhD with a dissertation on Hegel and Quine. He is the author of twelve award-winning volumes of poetry and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. His work has been translated into numerous languages. Recent publications include Kometenjagd (2009) and Ganz Ohr (2012), from which these poems were taken, as well as Das Mädchen der Maler Ich (2012). An English edition of his collected poems, Before the Invention of Paradise, was published in 2010.
Clay Tablet Bearing the World’s First Alphabet
That had comemuch later –
After everythingalready had happened –
Without witnessthe first stammered
wordthis atomic flash
forevercontaminating
the oblivi…
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