Thus I Ran Out of the Word (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Leonie Sachs
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Language or languages, Self-discovery, Traveling or travelers, Communication, Death or dying, Flight, Life and death, Holocaust, Jewish, Meditation, Aging
The Poem
“Thus I Ran Out of the Word” was first published in Nelly Sachs’s Flucht und Verwandlung (1959; “flight and metamorphosis”). The book’s central theme is transformation, and this poem, the last in the book, describes one person’s transformation becoming complete. The “I” of the poem charts her passage from one world into another toward a “homecoming.” The poem could be interpreted as a meditation on one’s passage into death.
The first line is an abrupt decree, and it suggests a summing up. In fact, the speaker begins this poem...
[The entire page is 1506 words long]
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