He didn’t follow the rules. A Romanian poet and translator, Paul Celan’s work is characterised by a complex and cryptic style that deviates from, or ignores, poetry’s conventions. My kinda poet. Paul remained true to language itself:
Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss. But it had to go through its own lack of answers, through terrifying silence, through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening, but went through it. Went through and could resurface, ‘enriched’ by it all.