lke Erb is a poet of observation, and her observations often lead quickly and vividly to problems

of the act of observing.

Elke Erb is a poet of observation, and her observations often lead quickly and vividly to
problems of the act of observing:

A Rhyme on Ever

The bushes, the bushes, the brambles,

the clumps of wild roses and round sloes
have torn our gaze forever
into bushes, brambles, roses and sloes.

The gaze on nature does not perceive nature whole; it is always "torn" by the perception of its
individual parts. That tearing is not immediately a matter of language, as the plants are distinct
from each other before they are named. But naming them as "bushes, brambles, roses and
sloes" has the same effect as the gaze: it "tears" what could have been a whole into "clumps"
that can be distinguished from each other both visually and verbally. So Erb's poetics of
observation both produces poems and explores the fragmenting effect of the act of observation
itself.

The linguistic problems Erb repeatedly addresses in her work are summed up in the opening
lines of "The Smile Pitiful":

how recast in words what upsets us

bird nailed to a black post

how escape words that don't protect

from all that bares its teeth behind our back