The Last Gold of Expired Stars: Complete Poems 1908 - 1914 - Tapa blanda

An aura of mystery surrounds the life and poetry of the Austrian poet Georg Trakl. Although he was born over a century ago, his starkly original poems provide a window into the psyche of the early twentieth century with its anguish, melancholy, and occasional exaltation. From a life inflicted with drug addiction and mental torment, Trakl paints a vivid, musical portrait of his autumn soul. This bilingual edition includes all of Trakl's mature published work, as well as his youthful poems and prose, drama fragments and selected letters, and is the most comprehensive collection of his work in English to date.

Georg Trakl (1887-1914), an Austrian expressionist, has been called one of the most original poets in the German language in the 20th century. Jim Doss is co-editor of the quarterly journal Loch Raven Review. He was born and raised in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and is a graduate of the University of Virginia. His work has appeared in numerous publications, both on the Internet and in print. In 2006, Doss published Learning to Talk Again, a book of poems and prose. He earns his living as a software engineer, and lives with his wife and three children in Maryland. Werner Schmitt was born in Pirmasens in southwest Germany and grew up in a little village near the French border. He began to write poems and prose at the age of 15. In 1984, Schmitt began his study of German and philosophy at the University of Trier, from which he graduated with a Master of Arts degree, highlighted by a dissertation on the ambiguity in the work of the Austrian poet, Georg Trakl. In 1994, Schmitt published Der Denkganger, a book of narratives and short prose. He works predominately with free verse, haiku, stories, and essays which have been published in many anthologies, magazines, newspapers, and read on the radio. Schmitt has performed readings of his work throughout Germany. He maintains the web site www.literaturnische.de which contains the most complete Trakl-Homepage worldwide in both German and English.