As mentioned in my original post, I find Grünbein's 1994 publication "Falten und Fallen" ("Folds and Traps") to be the strongest book represented in the collection. The entirety works as one long poem composed of individual poems, all written in a replicated formal style. For content, there is an emphasis upon the individual reclaiming life, separate from political and economic systems-- a view one would expect from someone originally born in East Germany-- but also extended further into an acceptance of our physical and emotional realms. Some selections:

And then the surroundings, the hiding places
..Of separate lives, so single,
Driven by lack, by want, in love with winning
..That you forget how you got here,
Among these camouflaged houses that witnessed
..All the ancient and recent trades along
The arterial routes into the countryside.
..Better to follow the bodies
In their Brownian motion, politely
..Obeying Phoenician protocols,
Instead of the forbidden aromas, obsecene
..Oaths, and this crooning available
On one or two frequencies since Orpheus.

--

To be invisible, moving silently
..In space, an ethereal body,
Turning doorknobs as though remote-controlled,
..Gliding upstairs and down,
Hanging out the window as though dangling
..On the spider's web of a block and tackle, an Ariel
Without orders and under no one's paternal eye,
..At home in tenebrous cinemas,
In bank vaults, ship's cabins, and luxury suites,
..A stowaway, lacking for nothing
Behind the billowing curtains, unaffected
..By the light, by the ship's manifest:
In a world of murder and mayhem-- run for it.

--

Did we know what makes the world go round?
..That love tends to isolate
Seemed clear enough. Everyone kept it for himself,
..His personal thorn, till the blood
Soaked through at the worst possible moment.
..It was rare for anyone to remain uninjured.
More commonly, the pain transferred itself
..To the other party. To be left
Was the worst evil, to be insentient in spring,
..Stand like an amputee under the busted
Ferris wheel... The way the wind carried us
..Into the treetops from which
We were later to fall with blissful cries.