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April 16, 1935


Sarah Kirsch (April 16, 1935 to May 5, 2013) was a poet. She was born in Limlingerode (Germany),  studied in Halle and Leipzig, and until 1977 she lived in East Berlin. From what I can tell from her Der Spiegel obituary, she was married to fellow writer Rainer Kirsch from 1960 to 1968. Her first major publication was titled Spells (1973). Google translates the critical reaction to Spells this way: 

The writer Adolf Endler praised it as " the freest in sexual or erotic ways of poems from all over the known to us ( and relevant ) German woman poetry "  

I don't know how dramatic her move to West Berlin in 1977 was. She has been much honored for her writing, and she also was a painter. She lived many years in her home in Schleswig-Holstein.

Not a lot of her writing is available in English but we have a volume translated by Marina Roscher, ‎and edited by Charles M. Fishman. This 1991 publication has an introduction by Carolyn Forche, who picks out that the poets love cats:

/ The uncontrollable gentle / Free who laze away.... 

The title of this book of poetry in English is Catlives.

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