For Joachim Sartorius, writing poetry means remembering. His new poems are verbal rebellions against impermanence – whether they are about Greek columns, the nymph Arethusa, squirrels, hairdressers, or vanished milieus.
Wohin mit den Augen - Where to Put the Eyes. An ambiguous reading of this title is in order. As in: being dazzled by great sensuousness; feeling ashamed for being forced to see something you can barely stand to see; an allusion to how, in the course of a long life, you tend to grow more rather than fewer eyes.
Sartorius takes us to places that are familiar to him: Tunis, Alexandria, the Levant, the White Sea. At the center of the poems is the Sicilian city of Syracuse – a place of memory in its own right, itself a gleaming invention of memory. Brightening the existential seriousness that pervades these Mediterranean meditations is a capriccio in several parts about the poet’s Turkish cat, its moods and sparkling exuberance.
