Sandscript

"Oliver's dream of "an open language," which mixes the cadences and inflections of his Andalusian roots with the inventive possibilities of German, reminds us that foreignness is our true condition. He bridges ethnic and non-ethnic German in sandscript, which explores some of the same broken terrain mapped by another brave traveler in the language, Paul Celan, and what he encounters line by line is a self that is at once foreign and familiar: "my poem my word." Here is the work of a man who is 'German and still not German, Spanish and still not Spanish, on the move: Me.' You will find him everywhere." —Christopher Merrill, author of Necessities José F.A. Oliver is considered one of the most important poets of his generation in Germany. He has published more than fourteen volumes of poetry.