Yves Bonnefoy's and Michel Deguy's poetry centers on “Verdichtung” (concision, verging on hermeticism) and “Transparenz” (transparency). The terms reveal that their poetry wants to create a common life-space, promoting language as the instrument of a mutual, reflexive understanding. Poetry is a common good; while modulated by the music of individual languages, it is nourished by the practice of translation – a means of permanent opening to otherness. – The intense poetic dialogue between France and Germany seems to have entered a period of near-indifference. However, German perspectives on Yves Bonnefoy, who is relatively well-known and Michel Deguy, who is largely unknown in Germany, bring out their seminal links with Paul Celan, who likewise thought of poetry as an encounter (“Die Poesie denkt an die Begegnung”).
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