Like Holderlin

By Rosmarie Waldrop b. 1935 Rosmarie Waldrop

got up early

left the house immediately

tore out grass

bits of leather in his pockets

hit fences with his handkerchief

answered yes and no

to his own questions

lies under grass

wilted flowers in his pockets

at the fence I pull my handkerchief

he liked to say no

“I’m no longer the same man”

and

“nothing is happening to me”

Rosmarie Waldrop, "Like Holderlin" from Another Language: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1997 by Rosmarie Waldrop. Reprinted by permission of Rosmarie Waldrop.

Source: Another Language: Selected Poems (Talisman House Publishers, 1997)

Biography

Poet, translator, and editor Rosmarie Waldrop has been a forceful presence in American and international poetry for over forty years. Born in Germany in 1935, Waldrop studied literature and musicology at the University of Würzburg and the University of Freiburg before immigrating to the United States in the late 1950s. She received a PhD from the University of Michigan in 1966. While at the University of Michigan, Waldrop . . .

Continue reading this biography