Gespräche über Bäume

Democracy is constantly up for debate; it must be shaped, transformed, and even defended in times like these. It requires advocacy and perseverance, as well as a spirit of courageous dissent. In this remarkable anthology "On the Subject of Democracy," around seventy contemporary poets have their say. Some are well-known, some famous, and some (still) unknown. They provoke thought and engage: quietly, poetically, yet also decisively, combatively, powerfully. Together, they are concerned about the dissolving societal edges and particularly about the general, even extreme, shift to the right: both here and across Europe. They all reject violence, hatred, war, corrupt language, and the looming or already realized societal division. They all stand up for democracy. And that is noteworthy: they all understand democracy as a verb, as an "action word." "No, democracy has not made the political poem redundant. One could even say that it is needed more than ever before. We need the poem of the times like our daily bread." Gert Ueding in his essay for this book.