Kathrin Schmidt’s poems are so smart, linguistically inventive and sensuous that you want to read each one out loud.
Kathrin Schmidt invites us on poetic journeys: to out-of-the-way, often tongue-twisting places like Los Guachimontonesor Paleski Radyaytsina-Ekalagichny. But her poems are also journeys into language itself. For, time and again, Schmidt takes the measure of and passes through a place, looks closely, interprets and reinterprets.
With Schmidt, a poem is a medium of surprise, in which every line break releases unexpected meanings. Archaic word-stock is carefully recovered and interlinked with terms from the present, making sparks fly. These texts go all out and delve far below the surface – all the way to the “earth cortex.” But they always remain so inviting, humorous and astute that you’re happy to go along for the ride, even to the remotest areas.
“A fireworks display of linguistic invention, phonetic delight and sometimes aggressive, sometimes dance-like sound. [...] Sheer verbal voluptuousness.” – Joachim Sartorius on Kathrin Schmidt’s poetry
