With a magician's deft touch, Sessner raises the curtain on the strange, spectral life of inanimate objects and the sorrows and misadventures of humans who live, lonely, among them.
Beloved by contemporary German readers, the poetry of Max Sessner is gathered for the first time in English in Whoever Drowned Here: New and Selected Poems. Painstakingly chosen from Sessner's celebrated three collections and from new work, these poems employ a matter-of-fact magical realism to engage the profound, philosophical mysteries of the everyday. Sessner makes nimble use of the material world as he choreographs poignant re-enactments of human yearning. Smocks in the window of a dry cleaner "trade stolen / caresses" at night. Death tries on your clothes while you sleep and eats your chocolate. A poem tires of being a poem, "a small mortal / thing that no one notices," and sets off into the world to make a new life. The poems of Max Sessner are like compact, musical fairytales. They delight us and frighten us. They touch us with their ghostly, melancholy fingertips and lead us onward.
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The little Husenbeck childrenthose were three children wholoved each other- THE HUSENBECK CHILDREN
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(Red Hen Press, 5 October 2023, e-book, 88 pages, ARC from Edelweiss)
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This is a new poet for me. I really enjoyed Whoever Drowned Here. I wanted to read this collection as I loved the title and thought the cover was creepy - in a good way. I enjoyed all the poems. They are well-written, engaging and I lived the use of imagery. I also liked the range of styles and themes used. I especially enjoyed At Night, Ascension To Heaven, Ghosts and Waves.
