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*Shortlisted for the 2019 Schlegel-Tieck Prize
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The poems of Ulrike Almut Sandig are at once simple and fantastic. This new collection finds her on her way to imaginary territories. Thick of It charts a journey through two hemispheres to 'the center of the world' and navigates a 'thicket' that is at once the world, the psyche, and language itself. The poems explore an urgently urban reality, but that reality is interwoven with references to nightmares, the Bible, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes - all overlaid with a finely tuned longing for a disappearing world. The old names are forgotten, identities fall away; things disappear from the kitchen; everything is sliding away. Powerful themes emerge, but always mapped onto the local, the fractured individual in 'the thick of it' all. This is language at its most crafted and transformative, blisteringly contemporary, but with a kind of austerity, too. By turns comic, ironic, skeptical, nostalgic, these poems are also profoundly musical, exploiting multiple meanings and stretching syntax, so that the audience is constantly kept guessing, surprised by the next turn in the line.
'The world evoked in Thick of It is one that expands with every return visit. Translator Karen Leeder's enthusiasm for Sandig's creative and performative energy is palpable - it comes through the more one reads across this collection, moving with and against its currents.' -J. M. Schreiber, roughghosts. Read the full review here.
'People who are looking to read poetry that will cause them to really sit down and think about the world and their place in it, looking to take a deep dive into the psyche and come out at the other end, may just find that Thick of It is exactly the book they need.' - Talia Franks, Three Percent. Read the full review here.
'Sandig, not yet 40 years old, was born in the former GDR and uses the complete dissolution of her birthplace as one of the layers of identity that slip and slide in making up a modern German - or, indeed, modern Germany... Highly recommend.' - Lit Hub
By:
Ulrike Almut Sandig
Translated by:
Karen Leeder
Imprint: Seagull Books London Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 203mm,
Width: 127mm,
Spine: 8mm
ISBN: 9780857428356
ISBN 10: 0857428357
Series: The Seagull Library of German Literature
Pages: 96
Publication Date: 01 July 2023
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Translator’s Introduction you wrote yourself the poem of it NORTH slender shadows my friends so I’ve been told Tamangur foam like sunshine, like winter, like wind geese chorus being inspected behind my eyes nightmare for the beast my dog’s heart shining practice for being away heavy creatures of the skies from the plane you see was once catfish one apple, two cups forgotten denuded trees friends still laughing red rover, red rover let’s flatten the grass, keep quiet, keep still to the centre of the world centre of the world the centre of each of our bodies south hunting song everyone else was lost without trace Sydney the open sea what happened next we do not know ear under the churchyard the glittering cities of central Europe roar yours faithfully yours sincerely portrait of a woman this photo of us we’ve shut up shop I sway conversation with the centaur the shoes worn out with dancing John open your eyes! noon south it will all still be there everything comes the white surface that is your heart all that you and I know song 8 taken leave Notes bouquets Translator’s Acknowledgements
Ulrike Almut Sandig was born in Groenhain in 1979 and grew up in Saxony. She has published two books of short stories Flamingos (2010) and Book Against Disappearing (2015), and four volumes of poetry. She often collaborates with filmmakers, composers, sound artists and musicians, and has won many prizes, including the Leonce and Lena Prize 2009 and the Literary Prize of the Federation of German Industries 2017. She lives in Berlin.
Reviews for Thick of It
A volume of poetry to be read quietly--to be quiet then. --NDR Kultur
