Bertolt Brecht "Radio Poem" translation

Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, little box, held tightly
to me
during my escape,
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
by land and by sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first when I arise,
recounting their many conquests and my cares,
promise me not to go silent in a sudden
surprise.

Translator's Note: I take Brecht's poem literally. I can imagine him fleeing the Nazis with a radio in his possession, using it to receive the news of their conquests as his litany of cares mounted.

Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956] was a major German playwright, poet, novelist, humorist, essayist, theater director and songwriter. He was also a highly influential pioneer of modern epic theater, or dialectical theater, with its "alienation effect" (also known as the "distancing effect" or "estrangement effect"). Brecht is highly regarded today for his poetry and for plays such as Antigone, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Threepenny Opera and Drums in the Night. He also wrote the lyrics to the song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" ("Mack the Knife"), which became a number one hit for Bobby Darin. Brecht fled Germany in 1933, when Hitler assumed power. A number of Brecht's poems were written from the perspective of a man who sees his country becoming increasingly fascist, xenophobic and militaristic. For instance, “Die Bücherverbrennung” (“The Burning of the Books”) was written by Brecht about the Nazi book burnings orchestrated by Hitler's propaganda-meister Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis burned the books of writers they considered to be "decadent," including those of Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway and even Helen Keller. Also among the books burned were those of the great German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who in his 1820-1821 play Almansor accurately predicted, “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." ("Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.") Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, Germany, radio, tubes, valves, transmission, communication, escape, flight, exile, land, sea, pain, despair, Nazi, conquests, victories, losses, cares, silence

Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations

These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

Everyone chases the way happiness feels,

unaware how it nips at their heels.

�" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world of learning takes a crazy turn

when teachers are taught to discern!

�" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.

�" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hungry man, reach for the book:

it's a hook,