Kuno Raeber Knihy

Poetry. Translated from the German by Stuart Friebert. "The poems in BE QUIET share with other good poems the capacity to penetrate and move readers, but I think they can do even more. I think Raeber's poems have the capacity to change readers. That's a strong assertion but as you read Stuart Friebert's close translations of Raeber's work you will find that the poems bear me out. Raeber's intellectual and emotional depth is underscored by an artistic intensity and the eye for pairing detail and issue that marks both the talented artist and the honest scholar. His poems, rich in metaphor and allegory, have an uncanny ability to communicate, or at least point at, what is just beyond direct description and rational knowledge." Deborah Bogen"

Chosen from among Kuno Raeber's extensive literary remains and arranged thematically, these poems plumb the depths of his spiritual and cultural heritage emanating from ancient worlds, by means of exact descriptions of everyday life that open up into imaginary landscapes. In an interview from 1964, Raeber said he was determined to show "the present in the past and the past in the present."

"These translations of a wide range of the poems of the Swiss poet, Kuno Raeber (1922-1992), come from a life of many interests in matters theological--he once studied to become a Jesuit; philosophical--his Ph. D. was in philosophy; and cultural history--he was a lecturer in history at German universities. The poems' settings are often timeless in nature; their subjects and objects, as Christiana Wyrwa writes in the comprehensive introduction, often "move from real situations into magical surroundings"; and readers are advised not to look "for rationally understandable connections" as they make their way through real land- and seascapes to interiors where the world is powered by uncertainty but on the cusp of righting itself again. The translator, Stuart Friebert, produces, as closely as possible, Raeber's lineations and rhythmic patterns, straight down to individual word choices") --