HAUS FÜR POESIE

They draw attention to what one might prefer to overlook in our comfortable late-capitalist world – for example, those whose invisible labor sustains the comfort of everyone else. The volume’s title alludes to the bucolic idylls of Theocritus, which idealize simple rural shepherd life and, in their idyllic representations, seek to mask the precarious conditions of the working classes.

The Poller-Idyllen, by contrast, lay bare the imbalances of the globalized world and position themselves within the political sphere. Cotten compares the idylls to a randomly opened hydrant, which brings to the surface the lies and bullshit of our societies. Beneath the bollard poems, a horizon line runs through all the sections of the volume; below it, everything is “Natureingang” (“nature opening”), as the notes put it. These are texts written since 2009 and recycled into a conceptual substrate in which the bollards stand firm: “Weil du so mächtig, so voll mit einem brutalen Umfahrpotential bist, stehen wir, um dich an dein zerstörerisches Potential zu erinnern und zu bitten, dich im Zaum zu halten.”

Ann Cotten in conversation with Betram Reinecke

The event will be held in German without interpretation.

Funded by: Suhrkamp Verlag