First Charterhouse by Daniela Danz translated from the German by Monika Cassel And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him to myself? — St. Augustine Dear Brother sew a cloak for my impatience seamed double with the thunk of ripe walnuts falling and the rattling of columbine seeds in their pods all morning long I circled myself but did not become a circle I tore long strips off myself but did not become a signal fit to be hoisted follow me into the house through the doors falling shut behind us follow me through the doors falling shut my name is Impatience follow me go through the doors falling shut behind us until you become a knock and fall silent my name follow me follow Excerpt from our interview with Daniela Danz and Monika Cassel: Karan: The Charterhouse is a Carthusian house — the order vowed to wordlessness — and yet these are poems of address, petition, command, imploring, self-doubt, even self-flagellation. You were born in Eisenach, right? (Have you seen the Wartburg castle?) So cool that you’re so close to where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German. Please tell us about your relationship with prayer. The next book of poems I write will be a book of prayer-poems so this is something I’m deeply interested in. Daniela: Yes, I grew up near the (now former) German-German border, and I always looked to the Wartburg, this most important German castle, where I also worked as a tour guide in my youth. Prayer for me is above all a path to set out upon. Of course there are formulas you can follow, but they are empty without that which you yourself must pour into them. It’s like art—you know the story of the way that lies behind you, just as all that you’ve ever written lies behind you, but there is no clear path ahead that has been marked out for you. All that remains to you is movement—movement toward gathering yourself more, to being more present, and to greater openness. It’s a path on which you practice, you commit yourself, you continually reorient yourself, and in the process you become more free. I was just on a pilgrimage in Uzbekistan, a Muslim country, with a Russian Catholic congregation, and during that voyage I also made a lot of progress on this path, because I am very interested in a variety of different forms of prayer, such as the Sufi prayer forms I draw upon in another section of Portolan.
From Portolan by Daniela Danz. Original publication: Wallstein Verlag 2025. Translation (bilingual edition): Georgia Review Books (University of Nebraska Press), January 1, 2027.