Kinderhilfe #61

Kinderhilfe #61

John Bjarne Grover

Als ich die Neubaugasse herunterging
fiel eine plötzliche Stille auf den Straßenboden.
Einige Männer hämmerten auf eine Plankenhäufung
und ein junges Paar hielt einander in der Hand.

Sprachliches - ich weiss es wohl.
Diese wunderliche Straße
enthält seinen magischen Namen
in den Händen glücklicher Menschen.

Bachmann sprach das Wunder aus
als sie sich nach wiener Namen
immer sehnte, ihren magischen Wundern
von Alte Laa, Pötzleinsdorf und Neubaugasse.

16.04.10

Added on 2 July 2014: Even the poems in 'Kinderhilfe' (most of them) have parallel texts - from the last fourth of the fourth book of 'The Endmorgan Quartet'. The parallel for poem 61 is this: "All the hoots are [...] / I didn't cross Marie". The interesting observation is that Neubaugasse goes down to but does not cross Mariahilferstrasse. This can be seen to constitute a proof of the relevance of this parallelism with book 4. There is a comparable thematic relevance to 'Kinderhilfe' in book 6 called 'Orphan and the angels'. Inbetween book 4 and book 6 is the interesting book 5 as a bridge between these. This is the book which exists in two versions in the 2007 edition of TEQ - for the 'linebreak function' as an alternative to book 16. There are some discussions of the 'sonnet version' of book 5 in vol.3 (in 'Poetic semiosis') of the 3-volume 2013 edition - also with comparisons with sonnets of Rilke and Shakespeare. The reader can certainly find much of interest in the study of this gap between book 4 and book 6 relative to 'Kinderhilfe'.

Parallel for Kinderhilfe poem 136 is the single word "Neida" - norwegian for 'oh no, absolutely not'.

11/6-21: Kinderhilfe relative enumeration #61 = absolute enumeration #76 which means chinese (Kangxi) radical #76 = chinese sign ⽋ = 'QIAN' = to owe money, deficient; deficiency, short of, lacking. This source mentions also 'yawn'.

See the historical forms of the character

Source (in addition to the internet 'wiktionary'):

Mathews, R.H.: Chinese-English Dictionary. (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission by R.H.Mathews, Shanghai: China Inland Mission and Presbyterian Mission Press, 1931). Revised american edition 1943. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.