The poet Rose Ausländer

Rose Ausländer (1901-1988) is one of the great poets of the 20th century. Her poems are perfect craftsmanship – she can do everything poets can learn. Her poems are perfect brainwork – highly reflective and integrated into her poetic cosmos. And they are perfect works of art – full of emotion and triggering emotions. This triad creates the fascination that still inspires readers today. Rose Ausländer’s life and work are exceptionally closely linked.

All stages of her life can be found in her poems: from childhood and youth to the Shoah and exile in New York to old age and the expectation of death. They tell of love, fear, mortal distress, but also of happiness: “don’t forget / happiness was there too” – and of the never-lost hope “that poetry is still possible”. Rose Ausländer left behind a complete oeuvre of over 3,000 poems, numerous book editions and publications in anthologies, newspapers and magazines. In the 1980s, the well-known poet became a famous poetess. Rose Ausländer receives the Ida Dehmel Prize, the Andreas Gryphius Prize and the Literature Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, among others. In 1984, she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Her estate is in the Heinrich Heine Institute in Düsseldorf.

Helmut Braun talks about the poet’s life and reads Rose Ausländer’s poems. The author, literary historian and editor of her complete works looked after the poet for the last 13 years until her death. There is probably no more competent expert than him to provide information on the life and work of Rose Ausländer.