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This panel was billed as a discussion about the discovery of ‘unbearable truths’, as mediated through the milieu of the former German Democratic Republic. It was much more about poetry, and that was fine with me.

Poetry is Better than Prose

The earlier panel Left/Right Literature uttered the profound question of whether literature is capable of truly reflecting the horror of war. The Austrian author Gstrein observed that novels often fall short of communicating war, because it is always more horrible than words can express. Combined with this is the fact that novels often present thematic linkages of characters and events that do not necessarily happen in real war. Rather, war is disjointed and unpredictable. So what could capture such an elusive beast? One answer might be poetry.

One Answer

How wonderful, then, to tramp a few blocks up to the Austrian Cultural Center to hear two German poets at the top of their craft. Uwe Kolbe read several selections from his ninth work of poetry, while Uljana Wolf shared a handful of her sparse poems. A festival full of books of sentences was punctuated by two masters of the syllable. The subject matter of their poems did not immediately speak to the travails of the GDR, but they were moving all the same.

Here is a translated selection of Wolf’s:

But truly when the wind picks up/
You can hear the hinges creaking.

Is it about revolution, shaking the doors of oppression from their hinges? Or just about a door? I don’t know. It could be. It could not be. But I liked it, and I wanted to hear more.

Stasi Troubles

Many in the audience were drawn to the discussion because Uwe Kolbe had experienced the horrors of former East Germany on a deeply personal level. After Germany reunified, East Germans were permitted to view the file that the East German secret police, the Stasi, had gathered. The opening of Kolbe’s personal file was a strange process: “It’s like someone wrote you a biography or autobiography and you didn’t ask them.” Kolbe discovered his estranged father had been spying on him for the Stasi.

Surprisingly, he was not destroyed by this discovery. “It didn’t hurt me that much,” he said. “It was like someone pushed me a little aside.” An unbearable truth it was not.

Generations

Both writers identified sharp generational distinctions in former East Germany. There were those raised under Nazism, those born just after Nazism but with a new set of repressive rules, those, like Wolf, who experienced a decade or so of the GDR before the wall fell, and a new generation that had nothing to do with it. There are writers and poets who learned to write under censorship, while others were raised with freedom of expression.

I’m glad that the poets did speak about former East Germany. However, I completely understand if they are tired of the subject. The wall fell twenty years ago and these writers have evolved since then. “Now I am much more interested in what language does and identity,” Wolf said.

Two Regrets

The only problem with the evolution of these poets is that they are not necessarily writing poems about war anymore — hot or cold — so I can’t test my hypothesis that poetry is a preferred medium of expression for war over the novel. The answer probably lies in between. In novelems, or pooks, or something. I left with one other regret. I wish I spoke German because there was clearly a whole lot of fun word play going on — the moderator would burst out laughing during these moments — and the rhythm sounded delightful.

Lofty Words

Otherwise the evening went fine. I have walked past the Austrian Cultural Center several times and wanted to explore it. The building, finished just a few years ago, has a probative feel to it, with an upward dynamism. Today Kolbe and Wofl’s poetry did truly seem to scrape the sky.