This is the first major anthology of contemporary German-language poetry in English for more than 40 years. As Nicola Thomas says in her Introduction:

“English-language readers have relatively few opportunities to encounter contemporary German-language poetry; the simple purpose of this anthology is to offer one such opportunity, in the form of a selection of recent poems translated from the German for an English-language audience. It has been noted that the last twenty or so years have been a moment of great vitality for the German-language lyric, much of the excitement of which has passed English-speaking countries by, for want of translations, and particularly for want of a selection of translated works gathered in one place. It is our hope that the poems presented here speak largely for themselves: that they offer range and variety, something for (almost) everyone, that they make visible some lines of connection in terms of form, style and theme-and, above all, that they show English-speaking readers a glimpse of the vibrancy of the German-language lyric in the first part of the twenty-first century.”

The selection of poets owes much to the tutelary spirits of three senior figures: Elke Erb, Friedrike Mayroecker, and Thomas Kling, without whom the landscape of current writing in German is unthinkable.