For various reasons I was reading Paul Celan last night. When I was eighteen I used to read quite a lot of Celan and when his collected poems in Dutch translation were published I wrote a piece about it. I'm not sure if I'm still very happy about that piece.
This stanza from the poem “Psalm” is one of my favorites, and I know that it is not very respectful to speak about favorite stanza’s. Unfortunately I don’t have the English translation here: “Gelobt seist du, Niemand.
Dir zulieb wollen wir blühn.
Dir entgegen.

Ein Nichts waren wir, sind wir, werden wir bleiben, blühend: die Nichts-, die Niemandsrose.”