John Friedmann will present a poetry reading and discussion of Paul Celan’s work on Saturday, Aug. 6 from 1-3 p.m. at the Orcas Library.

Friedmann will read from his translations, present a biographical and historical context for the poems, and describe his work as a translator. Friedmann translated “Passage Through Fire: Selected poems by Paul Celan.”

Celan is regarded as one of the most important poets to emerge from post-World War II Europe. Among his most well-known and often-anthologized poems is “Deathfugue.” The poem opens with the words “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening / we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night” and it goes on to offer a stark evocation of life in the Nazi death camps.

Celan’s parents were deported and eventually died in Nazi labor camps; Celan himself was interned for eighteen months before escaping to the Red Army. After the war he published more than six books of poetry and gained international fame.

Friedmann divides his time between Orcas Island and Vancouver, B.C., where he is honorary professor at the University of British Columbia. Some of his poems have been published in small collections, but mostly he has written “for his own delight.” He also loves to translate poetry, especially the larger works of Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, and Celan.