#Poets on Friday ~ Erich Fried ~ Exiles

Hi there dear poetry lovers, how are you today? I hope you are well and if not that there is always a poem to help you through.

Today I won’t bore you with one of my poems but will introduce you to one of my favourite poets called Erich Fried. I am not sure how well known he is in the English speaking world even though the Austrian-born poet lived for many years in the UK when he had to flee his native Nazi-occupied country. In Germany, he is mainly known for his wonderful love poetry. “Was es ist/What it is” is one of the few poems I found translated. However, he was an inherently political man who often saw through the games politicians play to get us to believe what they want. In “100 Poems without a Country” he talks poetically about exile, tyranny and how to keep up the hope and fight for freedom.

For a long time, I wasn’t aware that he lived here in the UK for such a long time but when I realised his poetry became even more important to me. He has translated some of Shakespeare’s work into German which I also didn’t know for a long time. I think that is quite a feat because it is hard enough to understand old-fashioned English but bringing it into old-fashioned German must have been really hard.

MoonHopoe shared a documentary about Erich Fried in which you can hear him talk about his life. It seems to be from 1988 the year in which he died. Please enjoy and be inspired to read some of his poetry. Thanks!

And als always: Follow the link underneath the video if it doesn’t play here on the blog.