100 words on a poem
Confining attention to one poem and imposing a word-limit of a hundred words is an exercise in promoting the poem as a complete work of art ...
Lieder
The German term is used in English to refer to Romantic art songs. The lied is a fusion of two arts, poetry and music, but one of those comp...
Undead Authors
Poets' names are a conventional and convenient way of referring to groups of works, but fundamental methodological problems arise where ...
On Reading
Literature is one of the essentials – not merely one of the appurtenances or amenities – of the good life, for it is not just the joys of re...
Poetological ideas
Some answers to the question: what is poetry? Poetry is “ die Antiware schlechthin ”, “the ultimate non-merchandise”. [Hans Magnus Enzensber...
100 words on a poem: No.1
Michael Wüstefeld’s poem ‘The great wave’ was published in Wende -Germany in 1990, written in the GDR in 1987, and is a response to a pictur...
Starter Kit
The Canon, or 50 essential poems to know Goethe – Willkommen und Abschied Goethe – Auf dem See Goethe – Ganymed Goethe – Prometheus Goethe ...
‘Freihäfen des Geistes’: Comments from Czechowski, Drawert, Grünbein, Hensel, Mensching
Below is the questionnaire I sent on 25 November 1998 to six German poets (Volker Braun, Heinz Czechowski, Kurt Drawert, Durs Grünbein, Kers...
POET: KERSTIN HENSEL
The poetry collections Angestaut: Aus meinem Sudelbuch . Halle: mdv, 1993. Bahnhof verstehen: Gedichte 1995-2000 . Munich: Luchterhand, 2001...
POET: ULLA HAHN
The poetry collections (all Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt) Freudenfeuer: Gedichte . 1989. Galileo und zwei Frauen: Gedichte . 1997. Her...
Poesiealbum
The “Poesiealbum” series of poetry magazines was published in the GDR between 1967 and 1990. It represents a unique distillation of GDR lite...
New monument, Berlin
The national Holocaust monument opened officially today in the German capital, after years of wrangling. The Monument to the Murdered Jews o...
Recent conference: FLASCHENPOST
Flaschenpost : German poetry and the long twentieth century organised by Dr. Karen Leeder New College, Oxford 16 April 2005 Prof. Robert Vil...
POET: GÜNTER KUNERT
The poetry collections Abtötungsverfahren . Munich: Hanser, 1980. Berlin beizeiten . Munich: Hanser, 1987. Der alte Mann spricht mit seiner ...
FILM REVIEW: Good Bye Lenin!
The clever, funny film Good Bye Lenin! captures the speedy transition from East to West in 1989. It invokes paternalism, ailment and façade...
