Tom Kuhn teaches German language and literature at the University of Oxford, where he is a Fellow of St Hugh’s College. With David Constantine he is the editor and translator of The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (Norton 2018). He is also the series editor of the principal English-language edition of Brecht’s plays and other writings, with Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, and has numerous publications on Brecht and twentieth-century drama and exile literature, including Brecht on Theatre and Brecht on Art and Politics (both 2015) and Brecht and the Writer’s Workshop: ‘Fatzer’ and Other Dramatic Projects (2019).
Events
Transformations: Music and Poetry 19:00-20:45 | Sage Gateshead, Sage 2
Poem
The passenger
When many years ago I learnt
To drive a car, my teacher made me
Smoke a cigar, and if
In the bustle of traffic or in a tight bend it
Went out on me, he chased me from the wheel. He also
Told jokes as I drove, and if
Too occupied with driving, I did not laugh, he took the wheel
Out of my hands. I feel unsafe, he said
I, the passenger, take fright, when I see
That the driver of the car is too occupied
With driving.
[Brecht c.1935, tr. Tom Kuhn]
from The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (W.W. Norton 2018)