Im Gehen

Ilse Helbich is known as a clever, unsentimental chronicler of advanced age, as the author of precise yet poetic memories, documenting life independently and fearlessly "where an afterlife sneaks into existence." However, she has also written poetry repeatedly since the mid-1970s - from which she is now presenting a selection to the public for the first time. These are "early poems" (from 1975 to the mid-1980s) as well as those created in the last twenty years, thus accompanying her active life as a writer. More pointed than in her stories and records, these poems encapsulate Ilse Helbich's experience of the world. It is the intense power of her perception - both of nature and of people and encounters - that casts objects in a distinctive light.