from Es beginnt: Trauerrefrain (2023)
[“So the Day Begins: Grief Refrain”]
Translated from the German by Kurt Beals & Aimee Chor
So the day begins.
Quick glint in the dust a wing
on top of the shelves
body lies not far away.
So the day begins
as fine wings grow, here and there,
with flying membrane,
feathers, surfboards for the light
So the day begins.
I am still afraid. Laid out
here between the panes
one & two, double glazing.
So the day begins.
In surges
So the day begins
in surges, we are stuck, wrecked.
Wreck is just a word.
Physics spins impeccably.
So the day begins.
The calendar approves it;
knots tied on the string:
ordered by weight class
So the day begins;
calendar tracks time to its
beginning; tracks that
it starts; doesn’t measure what
So the day begins,
shaved clean; shelves left bare|barren;
the light is treeless,
as on a plain
So the day begins;
without measure in|after
all who didn’t have
to die shouldn’t have and did
So the day begins
even in systems that have
fallen silent it
begins to crack seethe settle
Anja Utler (b. 1973) is a German poet whose most recent work, Es beginnt: Trauerrefrain (So the Day Begins: Grief Refrain), presents her radical rethinking of poetry in response to the Russian war on Ukraine. Utler holds a Ph.D. in Slavic literature. Her first book of poetry was published in 1999; the translation of her 2004 volume münden — entzüngeln (engulf –enkindle) by Kurt Beals appeared in 2010 from Burning Deck. Since then, her published work has included multiple volumes of poetry as well as translations and essays. Her writing has been recognized with the most important German poetry awards, most recently the Peter Huchel Prize (2024).
This translation is a collaboration between Kurt Beals and Aimee Chor. Beals is the translator of engulf — enkindle, the English version of Utler’s münden — entzüngeln. He is a professor of German at the University of Richmond whose translations of Jenny Erpenbeck, Hermann Hesse, and others have appeared from New Directions, W. W. Norton, and elsewhere. Chor’s translations have appeared in The Paris Review, Circumference, and other journals, as well as in The Opposite of Seduction: New German Poetry (Shearsman, 2025).