[Catherine Chandler]

Far be it from me to be "scandalized" by a non-rhyming sonnet . Even free-wheeling meter doesn`t bother me, and perhaps the unquiet spirits in this sonnet need the bump-in-the-night rhythm in order to portray their insistence. If so, good. If not, there are several quite jarring lines, e.g., lines 3 and 6.

As for the chalk, I immediately thought of the lime scattered on the bodies thrown into common graves, and also how people in hiding often chalked up the days spent in hiding . . .

I think the last line is a very effective close. Kind of brought to mind Catherine banging on the window outside Heathcliff`s room.

As for the umlaut over the U, for a capital press ALT + 0220, for small, press ALT + 0252.

[Christopher ONeill]

I certainly don't have a problem with the lack of rime: particularly when the sonnet opens with a turn of phrase which almost forces us to hear the German (or Czech, or Polish) this was translated from:

We've talked about this earlier.

the insistence that there are things one doesn't say (or at least not here, and not now) seems to me still characteristic of central European consciousness: I find it even in conversations in bars in Mandelbachtal - at least when older folk are present.

I thought the sense that this is not the original language of the poem (not necessarily in the sense that the poem is a translation, but that the poem is avoiding saying what it most needs to say) stayed strong through most of the octave, where many of the expressions seem deliberately forced into terseness.

But 'mummified on branches' strikes a discordant note of fine writing for me, and a mildew mottled Fall seems almost Keatsian. I similarly didn't like the hint of Emily Brontë at the end: I don't think you can mix Gothic sensibilities with the inexorably terse horrors of a Gunter Eich.

I found the sonnet unsatisfying: it started so well, but then got distressingly poetic. But it did start very well.

[Alder Ellis]

I remember this poem (or a version of it) having been posted some time ago in the Deep End, which must mean it made an impression, since my memory isn't very good. It seems clearly Holocaust-related, but purposely difficult to work out in its details. This is apt in a way without being gimmicky. Post-Adorno Holocaust poetry is inherently problematic, tasked with the need to register that which is too big for the littleness of a poem, too horrible for the decorousness of a poem. The last thing such poetry should want to be (or seem) is all worked out.

"We've talked about this earlier" is, for one thing, somewhat unidiomatic; why not just "We talked about this before"? But, more importantly, it cuts off a larger context the way a Browning monologue would, indicating the need for imaginative effort on the reader's part.

In this passage…

they were the young, the old
who refused to quit life fully, satisfied
with lesser vestiges

the subversion of the idiomatic phrase "fully satisfied" by the comma between the words is curious. But this is perhaps the key idea of the poem, the "lesser vestiges" being represented by the poem itself.

Or something like that. This is a tough one, but does make an impression.

[Martin Rocek]

I have to agree that the Gothic tone, turning this into some sort of a ghost story
doesn't work for me. Still it is interesting, and I am sure that I'll read it more than
a few times.

[Spindleshanks]

Another favourite clamouring for a vote. If anything, I find the hint of rhyme distracting, setting up an unfulfilled expectation. I would have preferred it completely blank. But that’s a small complaint, easily ignored in the power of the intriguing images. The unanswered questions seem entirely appropriate to the “Why?” still echoing down the decades since the obscene tragedy of the Holocaust.
The repeated “they lived here once” is masterful, suggesting parallel interpretations: as in inhabited, and , poignantly, lived before dying.
I understand “refused to quit life fully” as clinging tenaciously to life, so the placement of the comma is correct.

[Chris Wilson]

I like the sestet, although I'd like to see "mildew mottled" and "scan" replaced for the reason Christopher cites. The sentence that begins on L3 is very difficult to understand. I'd prefer that the referent of "they"--whether people or leaves--be clear in the octet. The reader should conflate in the sestet, not be confused in the octet. This one is fittingly disturbing.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I interpret this hütte as being, not a safe room, but a cottage in the Black Forest where people lived who did not make it to the safe room, but were cremated at an extermination camp (that perfume of flesh in the fireplace). Their ghosts remain. N is hiking and this is an overnight accommodation.

I think it is an excellent poem, but my reading is likely colored. A friend and I on a wilderness hike spent the seventh night at a hut where the atmosphere was much as described in the poem.

I too thought immediately of Wuthering Heights at the end, it didn't bother me. I didn't see this poem when it was on TDE. No nits.