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A gripping German-German epistolary novel from the time of the Cold War "I'd love to sing the big fucking song," is Lilo Fromm's reaction to Bobrowski's anger: he is no longer allowed to receive visitors at his workplace in the East Berlin publishing house Union-Verlag, right next to the "Wall". "I'd rather not be allowed to either." Bobrowski's correspondence with the young West Berliners Christoph Meckel and Lilo Fromm - two poets: Bobrowski and Meckel, two artists: Meckel and Fromm - edited by Jochen Meyer from the sources in the German Literature Archive in Marbach, reads like a contemporary novel from the Cold War years, but also like the romance novel of a couple hitchhiking through half of Europe and like a novel essay on the problems of poetry. The Berlin bohemians around Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Günter Bruno Fuchs and the backyard gallery "Zinke" come to life, as does one of the art centres of new figuration with Antes and Brodwolf in south-west Germany. Rome and Paris, Amsterdam and London are the settings. Completely different divisions of the world than the political ones are offered: Baden wine drinkers, Berlin beer drinkers and solitary schnapps drinkers. Each correspondence has changing frequencies and thus gaps. Here they are filled by Meckel's diaries, which also document encounters and conversations between the correspondents.