Focus 2002.tif


260 FOl'IlI on GerHJim Studies 

German writer o f. the mjd-~ineteenth century was obsessed with Napo­
I~. The anS\V~ IS: traumatic events have always shaped the nen gen.er.t­
non an~, .oft~umes. the genenbon thereafta Is it being exploited? Of 
course It IS bemg erplolted! Are there cheap explo itative th.ings that have 
to do with dIe Holocaust? Of course. ShouJd we forbid this as a topic? 
No. But we should - and the conference will p w bably address this - ask 

~e hard questio~s about how it is used, why it is used, what the unplica­
tlons o f the aU~le~ce are, and what me implicatio ns o f the theme pre­
sented ~le way It IS presented are. And sometimes dIe answer is: <it is a 
good tlung:.somet~mes dIe answer is: 'i t is a bad ming.' And again - back 
to the quesuo n o f tnterpretatio n - our views mayor may not resonatc. 

FO CUS: What new fields o f research do you see emerging? Which do 
yo u find most pro mising? 

G ilman: \~eU. in t~ms of young writers looking at Germany as a multi­
culrunJ SOCIety, I think that writers like T homas Meinickc and Zafer Senocak 
ace the moSt tnteresung young writers in Germany right now. There is 
D~s Griinbein, ~le poeL 11lcse are poets and aurllOrs who are dealUlg 
WIth ~e complexity of a new Germany m Europe and they are clearly the 
lIlOSt tnteresung people. Guntet Gnss has evidendy just published a new 
novel. r have not read a GUnter Grass novel in a number o f yeus. But It 
has gotten ~normously good reviews - and not just by the Grass-clique. 
Because, eVidently, he has gone back to this very sinlple narrative and he 
has gone to the topic of the war. So, it will be interesting to see these 
younger, very experimental writers, logo Schulz, Thomas Meinicke, Zafcr 
~ocak, also in terms o f this whole question about: 'Ok, we now have 
rlltS new Germany, what do we do with it?' And I think we are still In the 
age o f t~e novel. I .rllink that, except for G riinbein, new poetry is certainly 
oa t tertl~ ly engaging. And the new posl-Hemer-Mliller-Lheatcr has just 
lw:!eo a dlsasreL 

FOCUS: T hank you for this interview. 

Gilman: You are welcome.. 

CilTnlTnoJl: Ftb17lory 21, 2002. 

26 1 

Word and Flesh 

CONVERSKn ON WITH DORO"n lEA GRONZWEIG 

Doro thea Griinzweig was born in 1952 In Komtal near Sntrt:gan. She 
studied German and English Ul Tlibingen and nangor, Wales, after wluch 
she conducted research o n the poet Gerald Manley H o pkins in Oxfo rd. 
After teaching at the University o f Dundee in Scotland , aucl at a school in 
South German y, she moved to Finland, where she taug ht at the Deutsche 
Sc:hule in l-J elsLOIci from 1989 to 1998. She now lives In l-I e1sinkiand tn lhe 
country. G riinzweig received several prizes including the: Lyrikprcis der 
Sti ftung Niedersachsen ( 1997) and the i-leinrich-H cine·Stipelldium illl 
Literatu.t:haus Liincberg (2000). tWO o f her collectio ns have been pub­

lished with the Wa1Jstem Verlag in German: MitlJtJlllmemhnill (1997) and 
Von; EisUbrtlJ (2000). T he firs t colleclJon translated IntO Enghsh by Deck 
Wynand will appear tn 2002 as M uf;N"" ner C Ui (Ortawa, On tario: 
BushekBooks). The following conversation took place In German and 
occasionally English. It was decided to p roduce a transcttpt in English, 

wid} both parties involved in tile uanslation process. 

JEREMIAH: One o f the aspects o f your poems which I find so fasci­
nating is the challenge they pose to such uaditional p hilosop hical dichoto­
mies as self/ other, culnue/ nalure, and luunan/ animal (see J ercnll:th 15+ 
57). Ano ther opposition whICh they question is (ha. t between body and 
mind. Feelings are evoked by means o f very concrcte, physical images. 
whereby the body is both a symbol o f and a participant in certain sta{cs 
o f mind. Do you consciously set out to explore corpo reali ty, and how do 

you understand embo(ilmcnt? A big question! 

Grunzwcig: Yes. quite! \"Vell, what I can say is {hat I have been rlilltlcing a 
lot recently about the physicality o f word s. At the mo ment, working on 
dIe new poems, 1 now and then find myself explo ring how the names of 

things _ dlat is, words, and maybe more speCl6cally potrry - can be o n the 
one hand empty, inauthellllc, or then, on the o ther hand, bodily, or true. 
Poetic language, when It Yields itself up to {ilscovery, means for me that 



262 Focus on Germ:m Studies 

Ulings gain bodiliness. T hat is to say, when I am not in contact with poetic 
language, the world slips from my grasp. For me there is no sight, no 
perception, unless it is by means of language, and more parnculatly po­
etry. Since childhood, with my father preaching the "word" as a minister, 
and being somehow physically unattainable and God-like, but then also 
loving, I have been fascinated by the connection between flesh and word. 

JE REMIAH: But if I think of " Passion", meLe seems dlere to be a 
division between word and flesh. Paternal severity, associated with darkness 
and maybe also stuffiness, is con trasted with the sensual, colourful world 
of (he garden, as if the twO - the word and the wocld - were in fact 
opposites. 

Gr iinzweig:: Yes, true, but I think on ule other hand theLe is also a move­
ment in the other direction, towards the understanding that one's eroti­
cism orients itself in and towards language. 

JEREMIAH: And writing is then a physical process? T suppose if we 
think of singing, where music and words are interwoven ... 

Gr iinzweig:: Yes, definitely. Music certainly involves a union of the physi­
cal and the mental, and so, I think, does poetry, being a close relative of 
music, its Siamese twin, even. I read somewheLe recenuy that both halves 
of the brain - the right half, responsible for movement and dance, and 
the left half, in which linguistic ability resides - are called upon in poetic 
activity. Poetry, which contains this musical element, involves a mergingof 
the two. I've been thinking about physicality with regard to H opkins, and 
the poem we've been working a ll. I've noticed that since I've been writ­
ing poetry, I've been reflecting o n what physical conditions are necessary 
foc poetic writing. and also what poetic writing. in turn, produces by way 
of physical conditions. I think of poetry as a suspension of gravity. As r 
said before, for me, the world only arises, or emerges from a tremulous 
gr-ey mist, by means of poetry. and then it mvolves a feeli ng of losing 
gravity ... 

JE REMIAH: Transcendence? 

Griinzweig: : Not really, because r think o f it as a physical fee ling, like 
swimming. J remember reading something which I found fascinating, about 

l ntcrnew wiul Dorothea Grlinzwcig 263 

dolphins and swimming. and dIe fact that when they are at ease and swim­
ming actively, their minds a ttain a highly creative State. T hey begin in fruit­
ful play to invent original twist.s and leaps. I find writing - for me person­
ally, writing poetry - an analogous activity. T he state in which one writes is 
first of all a physical one. And then thcre are OUlcr conditions - we've 
talked about migration, for example ... so a particular way of life is also 
called for. And lilen also, wi th regard to creativity and physicali ty, I think 
of birth. 

JEREMIAH: TIlls wateriness makes me think of the fluidity of Ule body 
i.ll the poems, the uncertain boundaries between tImer and Oule[, whereby 
a &esh and joyous sensuality often arises. But then this lack of solidity. the 
apparent fragility of individuality, also seems - to me, anyway! - threaten­

mg 

Griinzweig: Well, yes, to me tOO, but maybe in a different way from you! 
In simarions in whid l 1 fin d ulis instability th reatening. and in which it is 
impossible for me to write, then I feel really desperate. But words are for 
me like fas tenings, p l.anks on to which I can cling in the flood-water, or 
from which I can make myself a raft. Of course, since I've been writing 
poetry, me threat of dissolution has let up, because it's ever more embed­
ded in a perception of a zig-zagging. or sinuous, creative process. One IS 

even gl.ad when such states arise, because they mean a great mental clarity. 

JEREMIAH: The body is often imagined as mobile and free in the po­
ems, but then also, in the poems about your fa ther, it becomes a prison. 
Do you sometimes conceive the body as a cage, a "mean house"? 

Griinzweig: Yes, I think o ne has to. O ne has these experiences. I've always 
been aware of being subjec t to these physical givens, but then also, on the 
OUler hand, dlere are ulese brief moments of freedom, just like in "The 
Caged Skylark", when onc has a physical sensation of non-physicali ty, and 
one is somehow expanded. I seek out such situations, not only as I did in 
moving away from Germany, but also now, in Ule way I live, in swim­
ming, cycling, walking ... Sometimes, I have the impression Ulat 1 have to 
walk my way to words, d lat I need movement to be inspired. 

JEREMIAH: Your notion of the body does nOt accord with traditional 
Western ideas on the subject, according to wluch coq>orealiry is to be 



264 FImtS on German Studies 

controlled, o r mastered, by the mind. And the femaJe body in particwar 
has been imagined as leaky and limp, and therefore especially In need o f 
lanting. Not lhat men's bodies haven't been controlled tOO, as f-<ouc1ult 

shows us. But particularly as a woman reader r find your depICtion of the 
body as mobile and dynamic really liberating. Is it for you as a wonun 
impomnt to srress boch1y freedom, or is that not an issue for you? 

Gr unzweig: Maybe t'll get [Qund to this matter of femirunity soon. Your 
questions are usefuJ prompts ... In any case, physical movement, lhe need 
for physicaJ movement, is for me a pressing concern. I have this urge to 
run, jwnp, plunge in. as into a lake, however cold it may be. And then I 
have a tendency towards tomfoolery, so that people think ('m n Ot all 
there, and r like that! And - dlls is related - I like using inapprop riate 
words, ones which irritate o ther people. It's like pulling faces or being 
clumsy. There's this desire to alienate through words - 1 fiod it amusing. 
Here I think thert's a parallel with Hopkins who, as a Jesuit priest, had to 
live within a regulato,), linguistic system, and who also perhaps felt a need 
to sub, 'ert tltis system. But as a woman ... yes, maybe ... 

JEREMlAH: Yes, [ mean, I find the fac t that women tra\'el itself no­
table and exciting, you know like Mary Wollstonea:aft Ifl the eighteenth 
century, and now nu~t literaruce by female writers ... That \\'omen are 
moving and writing about it, and that the female body need not be just a 
resource or a container or an object ... 

Grunzweig; Hnun. Yes, well there is lhis breadth ... I do conceive fe mi­
nine personalities as huge tenitocities in which I can reside, but of course 
thi s terrain is always under threat of disruptio n or invasion. As far as 
writing as a woman is concerned, I haven't thought aboll e it directly or 
consciously, but there is this fusion and b lurring which you mentioned. 
When words nlsh at me, or when I gather impressions, r have a sensation 
of being utterly open, like a sluice, or rather like a lughly permeable mem­
brane. 

JEREMIAH: flow fae do you exercise control over tillS process, and 

how far - well, perhaps you can'[ know - is it the resuJ[ of uncooconscious 
impwses? 

Interview witll Dorothea Grlinzwelg 265 

Griio zwc ig: I do have a feeling o f comro l, but onJy when I go ovcr the 
poems. I have t.hese nO(ebooks in which I scribble quitc ~~dly> 10 bursts, 
but then comes a deSlfe fOJ" ordcr:. A process of aeslhellCLZauon has to 
invoke aft element of conttOl. The subconscious for me IS JUSt the mine 
on which one draws; constant ordering takes place. T he less my con­

sciousness fille.rs and censors, the more things:ue brought (ogelher which 
in the conscious top layer would no t be brought together. So for enlllple 
you have all encounter with a pe[SQn, then you ohseeve a narural phen?m­

enon, then you write about the laner:. During this process the twO tl.un~ 
are linked together, so that both areas are fused; a complex of motlfs.1n 
the poem reveals itsel f to be an image pertaining to tile experiences wtth 
the person. Such a weaving IOgether of different smuds presupposes t:he 
stale o f weigh tlessness r was talking about, this being uncno.ul1bered by 
expectations, appointmen ts, p reparation for work - so 10 a condiuon in 

which those things do not dmg you down. I n such a Slate, writing causes 

subconscious forms to solidify, like when metal is cast illlo figures. 

JEREMIAH: Of course the reader:'s unconscIous is Involved, too. O~e 
finds dungs interesting in a tel.' because theyappeaJ to o ne 10 periups qlllte 
\mconscious ways. I'm interested in this cclationsilip be[\l.'Cen reader and 
writer, and was wonderulg if you also thought of wnting as a rebtJooal 

process? 

Griinzweig: Yes, absolutely. The last words of V(lm EiJ,gtbml, "Aber als 
Geistesgetreue zu denen/ ich cede zu defien ich den,ke/ kamt ihc ja mit", 
sum up my artimde rowa.cds this relationship. There IS III tillS poem a 
desire for continuo us motion IOwards the unknown, the as-yet-unnamed, 
and at tile same time, the "I" o f the poem is always spea king to address­
ees. These others arc far away, but they will also be. illvolved in the process 
of naming in which the '~l" is engaged. "!1le further away they are, the 

betted But yes, poems ue despatches to olhers. 

J EREMiAH: But you have also said that you wanl to work quite inde­

pendently of everyone, aod this tension IS Ullerestmg. putlculady :or 
women, of whom it is eJO:pe<ted that they serve others, a pressure winch 

you yourself have felt But you don't serve olhers by wnung? 

Grunzweig: Oh, no! No. \'(!hen writing, I don't feel f'm making the shgtnest 



266 rorus Oil Germ an Studies 

concession to anyone. [n o ther circumstances., in one's personal rebtion. 
ships, say, those feehngs o f duty and guilt an presenr, but no t in writing, 
no. 

JEREMiAH: Thinking more about the question o f reading as rela· 

lional: It Ius been s3.1d that translation reprcsem s the most inrimat'e form 
o f reading. T was wondering how yo u conceive the relationship between 
translato r and rranslalee, in your case. Sickka Turkka, j o rma Eronen, and 
Hopkins, for example. Because it is an ethical question, and one which 
invo lves power; rou take the wo rds o f another and - weU, it seems pre· 
surnp ruous, to take o n sllch an impo rtant task. 

Grlinzwcig: Yes, it is presumptuous. You certainly can't justify it by claim· 
ing that you are conjuring up the same creation in dIe new language. Po ­
ems o ne u:a.nslates are like p rompts which lead you to recreate somedung 
corresponding, or related, in the other language. 111is thought helps me to 
get over dus fundamental feeling of guilt r have about daring to wo rk 
with the poems of o thers. So 1 know what you mean when you l1Ik about 
the d ubious ethics o f translation. And regarding the relationship between 
translator and ttanslatee . . . 1 have in general a feeling o f being completely 
open to everything, of d issolving and o f being inundated - in my work as 
a teach er, fo r instance - and so 1 take the words of o thers into me. tOO, 
and they live no t oruy m my hean and head, but also in my entrJ.Jls and my 
wo mb. \"'(fo rking wi th someone else's poems triggers off a process o f 
rejection. I t's like having a skin gta ft, or someone else's han d attached to 

you. whereby you have the fee1mg sometimes that you can hardly bear it. 
As rae as power is concerned, when you enter into the kingdom o f an· 
o th er poet, you are forced into a position o f humility, as you have the 
feeling that you have your (JIm realm o f word s, fo [ which you Ijve - and 
this reconciliation is difficult. 8Ul o f course, this only throws light on the 
difficult aspects of transla tion. Translation can have the opposite effect as 
well , being inspiring and educational. O ne has dIe opponunity to train 
under a poet one reveres. As regard s Hop kins, I sometimes have the feel. 
log that o ne has at some point just to give up. But then 1 can m13gine that 
having deo.ded to carry out a translatio n project, you can justi fy it in a 
different way. Maybe by thinking dlat you ace enabling a pacucular poet to 
be received and understood in the o ther culruce when s/he would o ther· 
wise nOt have been encountered there. 

J ntervicw with Dorothea Gn mzweig 267 

JEREMIAH: Does it help wnters UI genera~ to know other ~an~ges? 
And if so, how does this knowledge have an IO nuelice 0 0 o nes wntlllg? 

GriinZVlo-eig: Well, dIe[e'S d\is state of hovenng j've talked about, wluch is 

linked to physicality and which is a condition of mSpII':l tlon. And 1 ~e dle 
linguistic sp here similarly. Physically, I IOUigine Gcrman to be wClghmg me 
down as if 1 were lying o n the ground with stones o n top o f me. -nlC 
Finnish language, in its o lh emess, pulls otis weight Ul the oth er direction , so 
the pressure is suspended. O ne language pulls one way, dIe o lher the op­
posite way. And so tltis hovering is pcrmiucd . Ano~h~r lhollgln:. ~ne's 
own language is a refuge in a fo[cign cn~[onment, but It IS also [elaDvlsed . 

You can find concepts, e~pressions, or patterns o f sound funn)" even 
grotesque, when }'Ou hear th em fro m the o utside. T hat which is ooe~s ~o 
becomes saange, and that's a good dling. And then tillS constant childlike 

wonder which a foreign language provokes. I find that sense of mystery 
analogous to a kind of creative state in wluch the poe l no longe[ entirely 
knows what is happening to her, when the words gam dle upper hand and 
require humihty. T he foreign language IS like air at high alti tude; it refreshes, 

and allows expansion. 

H,binki, Fdm<ory 7, 2001. 



268 Focus 011 German Studies 

POSITION LOSING 

Here this country 
which agrees with me 

leaves me cold 

My voice with which T once 
spoke for everyone 

is shrinking 

H ere T sit 
force myself 

through newspaper reports 
get sruck in the entanglement of sounds 

and after mat [ don't breathe a word 

Unmolested on the sidelines 
I take nOte 

of the disasters of the homeland 
The lhoughl that it might need me 

crashes during the flight 
over the BaJcic sea 

A chip off the old 

Germany 
is what they say about me 

since then I've covered the mirrors 

O bituary 

Responsive 
to no country 

Poem by Dorothea Griiluweig, trallslaled by Emily Jeremiah 

269 

"Das E nde dec IUuslonen ist noeh lange nicht das 
Ende des G liicks": 

odee 

Der Wunderglaube von Mario Wirz 

Mario Wir..t ist im Jahre 1956 in MarbUIg a. d . Lahn gcborcn. Zu seinen 
friih cn Werken zli.hlen Theatcrsriicke lind Gedichtsbande. u.a. Und Trollln 
tfrz(J1lst dein I-laor. Nochigulicbl4 (1982) und Ich roft die lf7ii!ft (Aufbau, 1983). 
Nach seiner Ausbildung zum Schauspieler. zog cr 1988 nach Berlin, wo er 
sei l'dem als freier Scluiftsteller arbeitet. Seine viel diskuticcten und 
umstcittenen Romane ES'i.ft spat, ich kaHn nirhl olnltll. Ein nikhllicher 13et1chl 
(Aufbau. 1992) und Bio,grophie einlS lebendigm Ta,glS (Aufbau, 1994) steJlen 
nicht nur das Selbstbild des "emanzipierten" SChWl.Llen, sondern auch das 
Selbstbild des HlV~lnfizierten in Fage - ctwas, wo h:ir cr KriUk inner­
und aufierhalb der schwulen Community dulden musste. Neben kritischen 
Reaktionen gab es auch hymnisches Lob. Wir.lliterarische Arbeit wurdc 
mit dem Liechtensteiner PEN -Preis und dem Forderpreis des 
Brandenburgischen Literaturprcises ausgezeichnet. ill clem folgenden In­
terview nUt David Prickett ii\l6erte( seine Meinung:w .,ldentititsliteratur", 
zeitgenossischcr deutscher Literatm:, Tennessee '"'(' illiams und dem 
lasterhaften " Handy". 

PRICKETT: Ich habe das Gluek gchabt, dich diesesJalu kennenzulcrnen. 
Wenn ieh deine Werke lese, Jube ich clcine " hysterischcn« GCSlcn - sprich 
clcine Korpersprache - im Kop r. Wie kaon - oder solhe - man das 
Autobiographischc von Mario Wir-.t und das litcranscbc Momenl VOll 

Mario Wir-.t umcrscheiden? 

Win: Hystcrische Gesten? Das rnterview ist fur mic h beendet (Iochlfwd 

spieD den &Ieidigkn). Wahmehrnung ist immer Intcquctal ion. 1m Kopf cines 
L.c.sers, der Wia privat nidJr kennr, entsceheo natiirlidl andere Bilder. Andere 

Intcrpccrationen. Kcin Leser liest das Budl, das ein AUlOrge~dlrieben hat 
Ufld meistens hat sogar den Auroc kem exaktes Wissen tiber semell 1m 

Der Text lst oft e.hrlicher ltnd mdikaJer und Huger fils der Alltor. jedes