Chthonic Shards: Paul Celan’s Poetics of Earth

At the edge of speech: Celan’s stone-poetics of trauma and geological memory

This volume explores Paul Celan’s poetry through the lens of geology, materiality of landscape, and deep time. It examines how stone, earth, and mineral imagery shape his response to historical trauma, silence, and loss. Through close readings, the volume shows how Celan’s poems function as stratified inscriptions – sites where memory, matter, and language become entangled. Combining literary analysis with insights from posthumanism and material ecocriticism, the volume reveals Celan’s work as a profound meditation on the Earth’s textures, temporalities, and the fragile continuities of human experience.

• By (author) Paweł Piszczatowski