When female-molting once again approaches history and gender, bodies and the codes of our experience, a glance that turns language into “fremdwörterhaus” (“foreign-word-house”), the “kleinhausordnung” (“small-house-rules”) of childhood: These are the themes around which Kathrin Schmidt’s writing turns – and not just her poetry, though this is where she initially tests her models, with concision, sass, intellect and not without melancholy. “im oberwasser berlins ein rumoren: breitblättrig, außer fasson, schlägt die zunge ein rad” (“in berlin’s headwater a rumbling: wide-leafed, out of fashion, the tongue does a cartwheel”) reads a line from the title poem, and where the unshackled language subsequently ventures is determined by history and by how the explosive powers of the history of the body – and what forcefully curbs them, “aus all meinen schießscharten“ (“from all my embrasures”) – are seen. With a great wealth of forms, these new poems attest to the individuality and intensity of the poet Kathrin Schmidt.
This child too
has learned the roly-poly, the kiss-my, the merely,
the blood-in-the-shoe-metaphor, the classic o –
this child too came along, rode away, scared
and instrumentalized, blossoming and blanching, a trap.
this child too has grown a head, a crop and a little pout,
the family added a little hat:
and off you go now
