29 March 2009

(taken from postsecret.)

23 March 2009

WOAW turns 2. nice.


as WOAW turns two, i am looking back on my relatively unimportant existence as a writer. so far, i haven't written a novel nor published a collection of poetry. i haven't spoken to agents or publishing houses and never finished a first draft of anything substantial. i have completed a meager four short stories and was never truly happy with their final versions.

the heedful ones among you might anticipate year three of WOAW to be no more productive than year two was. well, i wouldn't know. the outcome of undertakings like a sponsored literary journey to zagreb later this year (more details to follow in time) and the mdr literary prize (what are the odds!) will certainly have an impact on my motivation to put my material out there. further out than online, i mean, if that is at all possible.

soon i'll be featured in a reknown german magazine for contemporary literature. they sent an email asking whether i'd like to submit a poem for their next issue. i was asked to submit. just like with that literary trip that i was offered. now that means success to me. and WOAW deserves credit for much of that.

you, too, deserve credit, 'cause if there wouldn't have been a loyal readership out there from the beginning, i might not have stuck with releasing my stuff to the public. and by the way, i have never understood why you guys like my work. i do see how it differs from the rest of them in style, but i do not see how it's comprehendable or just in any way important. i guess it's evidence of sorts, like proof that i have lived here and partaken. even if just as an absentee.

i like to believe that WOAW eases absence. it eases the absence of poets, translators, readers, the absence of words, and the absence of sleep. maybe to some of you even the absence of me. thank you for missing, please stick around.


+ + WOAW is on facebook + + + add WOAW to your google reader + +

20 March 2009

the best book i have read this year (so far)

thomas bernhard's prose piece meine preise. he wrote it in 1980, nine years before his death in feburary 1989. it's an angry piece, and a funny one, and most of all a brilliant one. i bought it only yesterday and have read it from cover to cover already.

another of his works i can greatly recommend is der untergeher (the loser), a fictional story around the life of famed pianist glenn gould.

18 March 2009

16 March 2009

11 March 2009

i like to break rules

habe mich leise vertanzt
in den trockenen gräsern des wildparks
hangabwärts zerstolpert
bin in deine arme gewankt
ich meine ich wäre dir mit meiner hand
in den nacken gekrochen verfallen am
zaunzeug das um uns verstand
das die tiere verhielt die lateinischen
affen und käfer und bären
uns zulaufen liess und beschnaufen
gewaltrand wo man sich noch sieht
im laub das zertreten
die schritte erinnert die kehrten.


i've quietly misdanced
in the deer park's dry grasses
destumbled down the slope
into your arms
i think i would have crawled my hand
into your neck prefalling from
the fences us to understand
what kept the animals the latin
apes the beetles and the bears
outcoming and subblowing us
the outbursts of the woods where one still sees
the leaves that have been crushed
the steps remembered, verted.

10 March 2009

against the hype

following my high school motto, i have decided to say nothing about anything regarding books until the leipziger buchmesse is over. apart maybe from that bas böttcher has a new book out. this reminds me of a funny joke a friend of mine once made. awww, i'm in such a commemorating mood today.