Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Hans Magnus Enzensberger Poems

Hans Magnus Enzensberger Biography

Hans Magnus Enzensberger (born 11 November 1929 in Kaufbeuren), is a German author, poet, translator and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. He lives in Munich. According to a May 2010 article and interview, Enzensberger was born in 1929 in a small town in Bavaria and is the eldest of four boys. He is part of the last generation of intellectuals whose writing was shaped by first-hand experience of the Third Reich. The Enzensberger family moved to Nuremberg, the ceremonial birthplace of National Socialism, in 1931. Julius Streicher, the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer, was their next-door neighbour. Hans Magnus joined the Hitler Youth in his teens, but was expelled soon afterwards. "I have always been incapable of being a good comrade. I can't stay in line. It's not in my character. It may be a defect, but I can't help it." Enzensberger studied literature and philosophy at the universities of Erlangen, Freiburg and Hamburg, and at the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1955 for a thesis about Clemens Brentano's poetry. Until 1957 he worked as a radio editor in Stuttgart. He participated in several gatherings of Group 47. Between 1965 and 1975 he edited the magazine "Kursbuch". Since 1985 he has been the editor of the prestigious book series Die Andere Bibliothek, published in Frankfurt, and now containing almost 250 titles. Together with Gaston Salvatore, Enzensberger was the founder of the monthly TransAtlantik. His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Enzensberger is the older brother of the author Christian Enzensberger.)

The Best Poem Of Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Middle Class Blues

We can't complain.
We're not out of work.
We don't go hungry.
We eat.
The grass grows,
the social product,
the fingernail,
the past.
The streets are empty.
The deals are closed.
The sirens are silent.
All that will pass.
The dead have made their wills.
The rain's become a drizzle.
The war's not yet been declared.
There's no hurry for that.
We eat the grass.
We eat the social product.
We eat the fingernails.
We eat the past.
We have nothing to conceal.
We have nothing to miss.
We have nothing to say.
We have.
The watch has been wound up.
The bills have been paid.
The washing-up has been done.
The last bus is passing by.
It is empty.
We aren't complaining.
What are we waiting for?

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