Pool is a published poet and reviewer and a teacher of high school English. In this essay, Pool deals with problems of interpretation in Celan's poem by discussing allusion and ironic reversal.

Paul Celan's poem "Late and Deep" poses many problems for interpretation. His work is compact and allusive, and contains a multiplicity of possible meanings. A reader cannot always be certain of the meaning of terms and imagery, but given the respect accorded to the poet, perhaps it is best to say that one gets out of the poem what one can bring to it, based on knowledge of Celan's other work, and upon the typical themes, concerns, and motifs he uses. Celan often uses private symbols, and as his career progressed, his work became more and more spare and allusive. Some critics have accused him of hermeticism—of writing verse that is deliberately obscure and...