Born in Dresden in 1962, Durs Gr-nbein is the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany, a place where, he wrote, ''the best refuge was a closed mouth.'' In unsettling, often funny, sometimes savage lines whose vivid images reflect his deep love for and connection with the visual arts, Gr-nbein is reinventing German poetry and taking on the most pressing moral concerns of his generation. Brilliantly edited and translated by Michael Hofmann, The Selected Poems of Durs Gr-nbein introduces Germany''s most highly acclaimed contemporary poet to a British audience.
''Gr-nbein is a truly cosmopolitan poet . . . creating poetry which, however subtly, participates in and facilitates Germany''s sustained attempts to reconfigurating and redefining itself in post-Cold War Europe.'' Michael Eskin, Times Literary Supplement
