A meandering here and now pervades places and times in Volkmar Mühleis’ new volume of poetry “Gesichtsverlusterkennung” (Loss of face recognition) – historical guilt and lasting responsibility are addressed in the same way as technological boundaries and poetic, playful freedoms. The poems invite you on a journey through Europe and beyond, to familiar places such as Paris or Brussels, to enchanted byways, whether in Cayeux-sur-Mer or Alt-Kladow; the political mixes with the artistic, in a homage to Nâzım Hikmet, in memory of Ernst Stadler. In between, observations and encounters shimmer – ‘a limping man thinking to himself’ goes his way, a student from Kiev, one from Moscow, homeless people lie like ‘stranded grey seals in the underground’ – everyday images, turned into the unique, back into the desire not to lose oneself.
Poems
published in 2024 by Athena-Verlag, Oberhausen
116 p., 17,90 EUR