Love Poems By Bertholt Brecht (translated by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine)

Berthold Brecht does not come off as aparticularly warm and fuzzy kind of guy.  However, all of this is about to change with Love Poems, a collection released in the United States late last year. This compendium spotlights romantic poetry from the prodigious German playwright, stage director, essayist, philosopher and poet.

Renown translators Tom Kuhn and David Constantine sifted through more than 2000 of his poems, mostly written to his wife, and whittled them down to a concise collection of 78 erotic works, which offer a new perspective on Brecht's matters of the heart.

This first volume in a planned series of poetry collections highlights a more private and personal facet of Brecht at work. His poems, equal parts passionate and mischievous, eschew his more political writings in favor of a pure and unadulterated lust and desire, which deepens his literacy legacy by highlighting this often, overlooked aspect of his compositions.

This anthology adds an interesting emotional layer to Brecht whose romantic writings show a depth and fragility that are not always found in his verse or theatrics, allowing us to see him in a totally new context.