Peter Horn (poet)

[2][3] At the end of World War II he had to flee from his home and settled with his parents first in Bavaria and later in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he completed high school in 1954.

His poetry has been characterised by Jacques Alvarez-Pereyre as follows: Totalitarian regimes have the citizens and poets they deserve, those who accept the bayonets upon which order is based and who, by their silence or useless chatter, make themselves the accomplices of those who rule.

[9] Klopper 1992 wrote: "Inasmuch as Horn's poems are both unashamedly political and highly crafted, they demonstrate that materialist and formalist concerns are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that it is possible for a poet to dedicate his writing to a political cause without automatically sacrificing technical achievement [...]The ten poems that comprise The Plumstead Elegies constitute a sustained meditation on the nature and function of poetry in a society riven by violence, injustice and exploitation.

He has forged a blunt, at times brutal rhythm as part of a poetic vehicle whose project is to remind a society of itself politically and socially.

With marked success he makes "socially privileged" readers/listeners angry, uncomfortable [...] Horn's output is often compelled by an intense, burning anger, that, when focused, creates the most moving and elegiac poetry.

His often diverse and contradictory perceptions and reactions to the continually changing political sphere add to the work's credibility as a realistic exposé of the SA political situation over time.Andries Walter Oliphant described "The Rivers Which Connect us to the Past": "These broad themes are given an African inflection and expressed with consummate craft in a variety of poetic modalities.

",[12] Jane Rosenthal described Horn's stories, as "ranging from the drily satirical to recreations of horror and dementia", they "leave an impression of savage intensity.