Durs Grünbein

Since the publication of his first collection of poems in 1988, Durs Grünbein has emerged as "Germany’s most prolific, versatile, successful and internationally renowned contemporary poet and essayist",[8] a "poet of world significance"[9] and one of "the key figures shaping the contemporary scene",[10] alongside, for instance, Ulrike Draesner, Raul Schrott, and Marcel Beyer.[11]

Conceiving poetry as a means of memorial, historical, and aesthetic exploration, Grünbein arguably, draws not only on his biography, but on a deep sense of history and far-ranging erudition to produce sardonic poems and essays, bristling with unusual perceptions and inventive expressions".[12]

Whereas the intersection of literature and science, aesthetics and evolution, as well as the poetic elaboration of the existential experience in the GDR were the main focus of the critically acclaimed first collections of poetry, Grauzone morgens (1988), Schädelbasislektion (1991), Falten und Fallen (1994), since the middle 1990s, and especially since the collection Nach den Satiren (1999), classical antiquity figures prominently in Grünbein's poems and essays.

"As in his poetry, in his essays, too", observes Michael Eskin, "Grünbein succeeds in artfully interweaving autobiography and memoir with a host of broader concerns ranging from questions of history, science, and medicine, to question of ethics, aesthetics, and politics, with special attention to the continued relevance of the past – Greek and roman antiquity in particular – in and to the contemporary world, as well as the inevitable interpretive malleability of the past in the light of our ever-evolving present".[13]

The poet's dialogue with the ancient legacy is more complex even than his own reflection suggests and most scholars assume. Besides interviewing past and present, some poems also engage with the gap between the past and its poetic figuration.[14]

Grünbein's works on Descartes’ philosophy and its significance for the poetic subjectivity have been praised by prominent critics and thinkers for their depth and remarkable style, "one capable of conducting powerful and original thought with no loss of lyric intensity", notices Don Paterson.[15]

George Steiner's opus magnum The Poetry of Thought (2011) is dedicated to "Durs Grünbein, poet and Cartesian".[16]

• Grauzone morgens (1988), ISBN 3-518-13330-6
• Schädelbasislektion (1991), ISBN 3-518-40375-3
• Falten und Fallen (1994), ISBN 3-518-40570-5
• Den teuren Toten (1994), ISBN 3-518-40629-9
• Nach den Satiren (1999), ISBN 3-518-41028-8
• Erklärte Nacht (2002), ISBN 3-518-41305-8
• Vom Schnee oder Descartes in Deutschland (2003), ISBN 3-518-41455-0
• An Seneca. Postskriptum. Die Kürze des Lebens (2004)
• Der Misanthrop auf Capri (2005), ISBN 3-518-22394-1
• Porzellan. Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005), ISBN 3-518-41722-3
• Strophen für Übermorgen (2007), ISBN 3-518-41908-0
• Liebesgedichte (2008)
• Lob des Taifuns. Reisetagebücher in Haikus (2008)
• Der cartesische Taucher. Drei Meditationen. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-26007-4.
• Libellen in Liberia. Gedichte und Berichte (2010)
• Aroma (2010), ISBN 9783518421673
• Koloss im Nebel (2012 ), ISBN 9783518423165
• Cyrano oder Die Rückkehr vom Mond. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-42415-5
• Die Jahre im Zoo. Ein Kaleidoskop. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-518-42491-9
• Zündkerzen. Gedichte. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-518-42753-8
• Oper. Libretti. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2018

• Galilei vermisst Dantes Hölle und bleibt an den Maßen hängen. Aufsätze 1989–1995 (1996), ISBN 3-518-40758-9
• Das erste Jahr. Berliner Aufzeichnungen (2001), ISBN 3-518-41277-9
• Warum schriftlos leben. Aufsätze (2003), ISBN 3-518-12435-8
• Antike Dispositionen (2005)
• Die Bars von Atlantis. Eine Erkundigung in vierzehn Tauchgängen (2009), ISBN 3-518-12598-2

• Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems, (translated in 2005 by Michael Hofmann) (shortlisted for the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
• Descartes' Devil: Three Meditations (translated by Anthea Bell; published by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc., New York, 2010)
• The Bars of Atlantis: Selected Essays. (edited and with an introduction by Michael Eskin; published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010)
• The Vocation of Poetry (translated by Michael Eskin; published by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc., New York, 2011)
• Mortal Diamond: Poems (translated by Michael Eskin; published by Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc., New York, 2013)
• Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City (translated by Karen Leeder; published by Seagull Books, Calcutta, New York, London, 2020)