Verschlissenes Idyll

Marit Heuss's lyrical debut is dedicated to the perception of reality: from the Wissower Klinken to the coast of Portugal. The gaze is accompanied by readings and art experiences, as well as historical traces inscribed in the landscape. An Italian palazzo, an aging 'lovely place' with barred paths and eerie lizards, lends the collection its title: Worn-out Idyll. As diverse as the scenes are the formal variations within the collection, where long poems and shorter forms intertwine like a kind of puzzle, as Jan Kuhlbrodt notes in the afterword. In the multi-stanza poem Palacio invísível, which reads like a long walk along the Portuguese coastline, a lyrical stream of consciousness is opened, where the elements themselves co-write the text—when the wind turns the pages, extending the poem in a dreamlike manner. The poetic drive of the poems is fueled by an unrelenting eye, as seen in shorter poems like Anrede, which almost appears as a plea: 'or lend me, elder, two of your blossoms as eyes, where eyes no longer look, that they may see'—and that the act of seeing, which seeks understanding, never comes to an end. An expressive, cleverly orchestrated debut.