This is the first monograph devoted to José F. A. Oliver, the prolific poet, essayist, and translator born in Hausach, Germany, in 1961. The recipient of prestigious awards for poetry, Oliver serves as the current president of the PEN Centre Germany. Through close readings of poems and essays, this study focuses on Olivers intricate yet lyrical aesthetics and the inspiration he draws from fellow poets, primarily Federico García Lorca and Friederike Mayröcker. It delves into major motifs and themes, emphasising the selfs encounter with otherness in identity, homeland, and language, and explores the transformative tropes of the city, love, and death. This inquiry includes duende, the elusive spirit that animates flamenco, the transcendent poetics of solace, and the lingual, cultural, and post-identitarian hybridity evolving from a nomadic mindset. The monograph also addresses the flâneurs attempt at reading the modern metropolis, Heimat s conundrum of (violent) exclusion and (viable) inclusion, the notion of love as an untouchable closeness, the salvific trope of Orpheus, and the polyphonic ethics of multilingualism. Among others, this study relies conceptually upon Bernhard Waldenfelss phenomenology of foreignness, Rosi Braidottis theory of nomadism, Platos disquisition on love, Roland Barthess explication of mourning, Homi Bhabhas notion of a Third Space, Franz Hessels paradigm of flânerie, and the allegory of the Dance of Death and its gendering of death figures. Olivers use of unconventional poetic devices pushes the boundaries of language and readability. With polyvalent lyric interventions, he confronts homogeneity and discrimination, urging readers to exercise their political consciousness. This study is for students of German avant-garde poetry and readers interested in questions raised by nomadic theory and topics such as intersectionality and multilingual identity.

Franz R. Kempf is Professor Emeritus of German Studies at Bard College. Numerous publications