Helga M. Novak: Love Poems

Helga M. Novak
Love Poems

poetry
edited with an afterword by Silke Scheuermann

160pp (24,000 words)

The volume LIEBESGEDICHTE, edited and selected by Silke Scheuermann, collects the most beautiful declarations of love by the great poet Helga M. Novak, who was honoured – among many other awards - with the Christian Wagner Award.

LIEBESGEDICHTE contains everything that has distinguished Helga Novak’s poetry over the decades and still marks it out today: wit, directness, the archaic, sex. And nature. Helga Novak’s LIEBESGEDICHTE sometimes echo the great comedies or they are infinitely tragic, but always there lurks somewhere in the background the utopian possibility of an idyll.

Helga Novak’s love lyrics allow us a new perspective on the writer, the great political poet, the author of autobiographical prose and the singer of nature.


»There is no substitute for these poems.«
Michael Lentz

»An outstanding German poet.«
Günter Grass

Reviews

»The poems read like one big ode to vital love.«
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»This selection shows Helga M. Novak as a great love poet, who, over the decades, has tried new and different perspectives on the topic of love: political, social, historical, natural-historical, ecological and mythical.«
DIE WELT

»A poem by Helga M. Novak is always a discovery: They cannot be read often enough. The volume edited by Silke Scheuermann invites us to do precisely that.«

Deutschlandradio

»Her name may be mentioned in the same breath as Ingeborg Bachmann, Sarah Kirsch and Friederike Mayröcker.« 

Westdeutscher Rundfunk



More titles by Helga M. Novak

Helga M. Novak: As Long As Love-Letters Continue to Arrive. Collected poems (2 volumes)Helga M. Novak: The Frost Saints / Bird Without WingsHelga M. Novak: Residence in a Mad HouseHelga M. Novak: Silvatica. PoemsHelga M. Novak: Where I am NowHelga M. Novak: Trapped. Autobiographical prose 1954-2013