Paul Celan in Counterpoint: A Poetic Dialog with Sergio Torres-Martínez (Contrapuntos poéticos Book 3)

This illustrated counterpoint unfolds as a sustained theological argument conducted through poetry across Paul Celan's final three volumes (Lichtzwang, Schneepart, Zeitgehöft). Poet Sergio Torres-Martínez constructs a systematic refutation of the Kabbalistic mysticism that pervades Celan's late work—not to diminish Celan's achievement or his witness to the Holocaust, but to assert an independent voice shaped by encounter. This is neither translation nor imitation, but a dialogue across irreducible difference: a personal theodicy insisting that human beings shine brighter than any fetishized stone.Due to copyright restrictions, Celan's poems cannot be reproduced here. Instead, his titles stand alone, facing Torres-Martínez's responses directly. This absence becomes structural—a haunting echo of the very incommunication that permeates Celan's poetry, now enacted in the architecture of the book itself. Read more