Thomas Bernhard Collected Poems

Beloved Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard (1931–89) began his career in the early 1950s as a poet. Over the next decade, Bernhard wrote thousands of poems and published four volumes of intensely wrought and increasingly personal verse, with such titles as On Earth and in Hell, In Hora Mortis, and Under the Iron of the Moon. Bernhard’s early poetry, bearing the influence of Georg Trakl, begins with a deep connection to his Austrian homeland. As his poems saw publication and recognition, Bernhard seemed always on the verge of joining the ranks of Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, and other young post-war poets writing in German. During this time, however, his poems became increasingly more obsessive, filled with an undulant self-pity, counterpointed by a defamatory, bardic voice utterly estranged from his country, all of which resulted in a magisterial work of anti-poetry—one that represents Bernhard’s own harrowing experience with his leitmotif of success–failure, which makes his fiction such a pleasure.

For all of these reasons, Bernhard’s Collected Poems, translated into English for the first time by James Reidel, is a key to understanding Bernhard’s irascible black comedy found in virtually all of his writings—even down to his last will and testament. There is much to be found in these pages for Bernhard fans of every stripe.

Thomas Bernhard (1931–89) grew up in Salzburg and Vienna, where he studied music. In 1957 he began a second career as a playwright, poet, and novelist, going on to win many of the most prestigious literary prizes of Europe and becoming a beloved cult writer around the world. James Reidel is a poet, editor, biographer, and translator.