Nightly Talk on God and the World

here's my translation of karl mickel's Nächtliches Gespräch über Gott und die Welt. In English: Nightly Talk on God and the World. The homepage i have linked to is maintained by his children, Carla Lehmann and Paul-Michael Mickel. Here you'll find the audio-version.

Nightly Talk on God and the World

The hand: five fingers and the world's
Five continents, my hand: the world
The world: my lot. In this stonetown
Third floor, the world rises and falls.

That's what she said, and that it was my fault
That it was I who brought it into being, who keeps it alive
That I was such as God: Who, patiently,
(That's what I say) suspects me of intention to defraud

So not I. I am who dwells in our modern world
While I need it, it needs me not
I am not God, I dare not judge
It bears with me and I'm rewarded much

And I (I idiot!) question her love.
What did she want? "Just you, the ordinary stuff."



Nächtliches Gespräch über Gott und die Welt

Die Hand: fünf Finger, und die Erde hat
Fünf Kontinente, meine Hand: die Welt
Die Welt: mein Teil. In dieser Steinestadt
Im dritten Stockwerk steigt die Welt und fällt -

Das sagte sie und sagte, ich sei schuld
Ich sei es, der die Welt erschuf, erhält
Sei gleichsam Gott: der sieht sich mit Geduld
(Das sage ich) um seine Welt geprellt -

Also nicht ich. Ich bin, der sie bewohnt
Ich brauche sie, jedoch braucht sie mich nicht
Ich bin nicht Herr, ich halte kein Gericht
Erträgt sie mich, bin ich genug belohnt -

Und ich (ich Arsch!) stell ihre Lieb in Frage.
Was wollte sie? "Mit Dir normale Tage."

what's with the pics?!

i post them. they disappear. i post them. they disappear. i post them. they... disappear.
even my own ones. NOT FUNNY.

day 40

(picture taken from pictures of walls.)

finally, i'm at the third revision of the flood story. currently i'm on page 3 of 8 and could raise the number of total words from 2736 to 3016 already. that in itself is great, but, more importantly, i feel there's also a gain in atmosphere.

later today i'll post the monday podcast. thinking of uploading one of my own poems but haven't decided just yet.

a long and interesting post (really!)

i've made notes for this, so that i wouldn't forget anything. basically, this post will be about last night's slam in the zurich schiffbau. i was surprised to see as many young people - not only because the weather was grand, but also because of the rather expensive admission charge of CHF 20,- (approximately € 13,-). the line-up was grand, though, including national champions like lara stoll. the event itself had a much higher budget than the two smaller slams in munich and freiburg i attended previously. of the twelve contestants who performed, only four were women. this is normal, pauline confirmed. interestingly, my mother, who accompanied me last night, noticed that female slammers approach language in a complete different way; all in all, she said, there was a lot more wordplay and creative use of language (as in: technically) among the female slammers. the topics of choice were somewhat more serious, too. my text gewissensbisse, for example, deals with a serious topic (cheating) and raised laughs only in freiburg so far. in zurich it was greeted with demure silence and earned me less applause than the more obviously funny pieces of my fellow contestants. i've been told a couple of times now that this may be due to my rather stern deliverance. i'm sure this is true, yet the irony in gewissenbisse stems from the overstated and hysterical reaction of the female protagonist who goes ballistic and who takes her random speculations all too seriously. i have to say i'm not too willing to alter my performance just so the audience will like me better. while i'm sure winning a slam would feel awesome, winning is not why i partake. i partake because i like to put my words out there and because i like talking to people without being interrupted for up to seven minutes about whatever topic i fancy. listening to harry kienzler from tübingen, who won the slam but doesn't have a blog or homepage, and all the other more experienced excellent slammers, i understood how much work lies before me if i want to pursue this. learning my text by heart alone took me what seemed like forever; those of you who know me personally know what big aversion i have with regard to repetition and learning by rote. speech or voice training, on the other hand, which seem to be common tools, too, appeal to me more. many slammers seem to have their roots in acting - see simon chen, who delivers his texts absolutely professional and extremely listener-friendly. the slam was moderated well by rayl patzak and ko bylanzky who give their version of the evening here. you'll notice that i'm listed there with a stage name, annina van arx. honestly, i'm not sure whether i should stick with it. it's an altered version of my grandmother's maiden name von arx, that i thought of a while ago. following various pieces of advice, i took it on as a stage name for the slam yesterday night. while i got mostly good reactions to the name, i'm skeptical. i've always been concerned about authenticity, so 'hiding' behind a pseudonym feels awkward. perhaps i'll just have to get used to it first?

after an edifying evening, then, my personal highlight of the night waited in my electronic mailbox: joachim sartorius praised my translation of his poem So viele Wörter ich jetzt esse, stating he liked it very much. needless to say i deeply, deeply appreciate his commendation. for the original and my translation, see the post of 19 april 2007 below below or listen to it here.

small slam gallery

one of my favorite poems of all time...

...would have to be My Institutionals by patricia ferrell. this is one of those poems that makes me think i'll never write well. those of you who know my bargains with the self - blog will notice that i've stolen [borrowed] the term from patricia. i've tried to find out more about her a couple of times, but couldn't detect much on the net. all i know is that she's from new york. apparently salon had a text version of My Institutionals, but that seems to be gone, too. however, i still want to translate the poem someday. now, to get her words together, i'll have to use my pre-internet-songtext-sound out-technique. you guys don't happen to have a transcript, do you?

before driving into zurich for the schiffbau slam in a while, i'll have something to eat and get ready. i've forgotten my favorite pair of jeans and my texts in freiburg, so i'll have to think about what to wear and where to print a third copy of my texts. i wonder where the second is. oh well...

so... how did it go?

just a quick post about yesterday's poetry slam @ cafe atlantik in freiburg:

for me, it went really well. i performed gewissensbisse and to my surprise the jury voted me into the finale. my first poetry slam finale, that was. as competition was tough (pauline füg and tobias heyel as a duo, tommy tesfu, and lars ruppel amongst others), i hadn't expected that to happen at all. indeed, if i had, i had brought along another second text but Die Resignation. i wasn't in the mood for reading it and it proved to be an absolutely wrong text for a poetry slam finale, too. from now on, i'll bring along different stuff. just like on saturday at the kiezmeisterschaft, for a second time i got the impression that the audience clearly prefers funny texts. while i can understand that, i think there's a latent danger (not experienced enough yet to call it trend) to confuse poetry slams with stand up comedy events. good that sebastian 23, who moderated the slam, could keep the audience in good humor. in the end it was tommy tesfu who came first with a piece on madonna and her mad black-baby-adopting-antics.

i brought my camera along and took pictures, some of which i'll post here on sunday.

german humor

this is a pic my friend N took in stuttgart. it reads something like:
keep drive free (in black) and in grey free all drives.

find that funny? for more on german vs. british humor read this, an article given to me by C. cheers to you both.

good bye munich

just a quick post to say good bye to munich. it's been a great eight weeks here - after all weeks that led to decisions that broadened my horizon considerably. by quitting my job in order to write for a while, i have learned that better things come to you if you let go of insincerity and free yourself from suboptimal situations. this may sound somewhat pathetic, but just as an old friend of mine has quit her law studies in order to work with horses - her biggest love ever - i believe the most important times in life you just have to follow your heart. even if nothing much comes of it. because then, according to my logic, something even better will come along. amen.

day 35

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. (robert heinlein)

nocturnals

i SO have seen enough of my laptop, i'm starting to think i can't take another five minutes. maybe i've somehow overdone it. as much as i love writing, i'm starting to hate sitting in front of that screen every day, usually more than twelve hours. god knows what i'm doing with all my time, since the word count doesn't go up much (well, you've sure heard that)... but then there's the networking, the research, the email writing, the homepages of interest, the translating, the maintaining of blogs, podcast page and - beware - crappy myspaces. there's arranging of planes and trains and eating and shopping groceries and drinks and there's the phone that rings and rings... and the thinking, of course, of making these last lines that sound like accidental rhymes a slam text. ha! the slam-thing has totally and absolutely unexpectedly gotten hold of me. now that i know that spoken word doesn't only exist, but that i can actually partake in it, creating performances suddenly seems a lot more interesting than writing a book. i write "suddenly" when it's not all that sudden, really. i have always stressed that my poems are to be read out loud or listened to rather than just read quietly and that it's all about the rhythm that my tongue beats when it recites my poems. i just never knew there was an audience interested in listening to what i wrote. writing a book seemed the only logical conclusion as i knew for sure there are people who like to read. well, things have changed, and now writing a book appears to be somewhat futile. i bet this is just 'cause i've seen so much of my laptop lately. i'm looking forward to the next four days that will be mostly traveling and meeting people.

day 34

i'm a little consumed with def poetry at the moment. for all of you who are not from the states and need an idea of what i'm talking about, play the steve coleman video below. it's just brilliant, i love his poem and how he delivers it. amazing, too, that people in the states can make a very good living of this once they've reached a certain level of fame. i'll have to see whether there's a chance to grab some old episodes of def poetry at ebay sometime. but before that i will have to attend to my word count. [only why do i always read word CUNT?] Not True, or Only in Parts, by the way, became more of a battle rap than anything else - i'll have to work on that some more.

steve coleman @ def poetry

day 33

after marvelling at rayl's turntabels and the beats they produced to poetry records last night, i just couldn't help but write another slam text. that's why, again, the novel's word count hasn't gone up one single word today. i've given the poetry slam lyrics i am working on at the moment the title Stimmt nicht, oder nur in Teilen, which means Not True, or Only in Parts. i've written two pages already and think i'll pause here for now. after all, i still have to post today's podcast and translation. this time it's a paul boldt poem called In der Welt or In the World. i'm sorry i can't provide you guys with a portrait of mr. boldt (1885 - 1921), but i'm afraid even his german fan-site doesn't have one. the site DOES feature an english version of the page, though. it's a shame the site hasn't been updated since august 2006, really. anyways. ladies and gentleman, annina luzie schmid featuring mr. paul boldt:


In The World

I drop my face on stars
That uncurl as if hit.
The woods move moonward like black seafish drift
Into the bluish ocean, my glances wave from it.

My I is gone. It makes a stellar journey.
From where the fabrics shine, it is not I.
The days, white doters, die.
I-less nerves are tremulous and cry.



In der Welt

Ich lasse mein Gesicht auf Sterne fallen,
Die wie getroffen auseinander hinken.
Die Wälder wandern mondwärts, schwarze Quallen,
Ins Blaumeer, daraus meine Blicke winken.

Mein Ich ist fort. Es macht die Sternenreise.
Das ist nicht Ich, wovon die Kleider scheinen.
Die Tage sterben weg, die weißen Greise.
Ichlose Nerven sind voll Furcht und weinen.

been there, done that, got the button

check rayl's blog for a summary of the kiezmeisterschaft evening.

or see comment of sacha @ day 31 below.
_____________________________

when a wicked migraine hit me around 4.30 pm yesterday afternoon, i briefly feared for my performance in the evening. as many times before, though, two thomapyrin tablets saved my presence. after a warm welcome by rayl, i got on stage around ... not sure what time it was. must have been around 10 pm. together with a couple of previous kiez-champions, i was reciting in the second set. instead of Die Resignation, i opted for my text Gewissensbisse, which i believe was a good choice. J filmed my performance with her digital camera and will send the clip to me in the next couple of weeks. depending on how well i come across, i might even post it at youtube or so. we'll see.

including myself, 12 poets lined up. as the winner of the first jury-judged round received 27 points and i received 23, i'm content. i didn't reach the finale, but for a first performance, i think the rating i received is pretty good. also, me and marius were the only non-locals participating - everybody else knew the venue and its crew. all in all, it was a great evening and i thank my entourage of friends (aaaaw, how nice sounds that??) for coming along a zillion times!

day 31

my friend J will arrive from frankfurt in two hours time. i keep forgetting i'll actually be on stage tonight. i'm not (yet?) nervous about it, for at the moment i feel comfortable with both texts. it feels like professional distance jumped in the formerly very narrow space between my text and myself. i assume that's due to the high number of times i read, heard and practiced the texts. they feel almost completely detached from me now. the one thing left to do is to find the quickest way to the venue of the kiezmeisterschaft.

i'm thinking about re-writing the complete flood-story. or, more carefully worded, about producing a second version. doing so is on top of my to-do-list for monday and going to come out either great or terrible. i want to make it sound a little more ... poetic ... maybe. since ten winning texts are supposed to become a radio/ audio book, too, i'm not sure about deranging my paragraphs all too much. i guess i'll just see how things go on monday and what comes out of it. in case re-writing won't work, i'll just hand in a third draft of the first version.

(picture taken from kiezmeisterschaft.)

day 30

so far, so good. while the plan to get up early today didn't quite work out, i have still managed to get the word count up a bit. i started a progress list on which i jot down the number of words written each day. i have to admit i do worry about my sleeping habits. while i like being up at night, productivity definitely decreases after 1.30 am at the latest. i was considerably more prolific during the weeks i went to bed around 11 pm and got up around 9 am - at least that's what i like to believe. perhaps the staying up late has to do with the street noise coming through the window during the day. at night i just have more peace and quiet.

mea culpa!

ken just brought to my attention that as yet only people who possess a gmail account could leave comments. i'm really sorry for that and have immediately altered the settings accordingly. from now on, everybody will be able to leave their opinion. uncensored.

day 29

i'll have to give myself a break. recording every single new version of gewissensbisse takes a toll on my voice. no point in straining it to hoarseness. besides getting the print version of the text ready, complete with marks for intonation, i continued to work on the manuscript today. slowly still, but that doesn't matter.

(picture taken from pictures of walls.)

5:03 am

thinking of staying awake. asked mr. sartorius for his permission to use his work. re-reading the translation yet again, i wonder whether i should have put "i enter" instead of "i go there". i come to the conclusion that "going there" implies more overcoming and therefore is stronger than enter. the birds twitter. will try and sleep now.