Event: June 2019
Sun
16/6/19
07:30 PM
Sergio Raimondi – Problems with Writing an Ode to the Pacific Ocean
Sergio Raimondi (born in 1968 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina) has been seen as a reviver of Argentinian poetry since the publication of his first volume, Poesía civil, in 2001 (translated into German as Zivilpoesie, Reinecke & Voß 2017, by Timo Berger). The poet Arturo Carrera praised Poesía civil for its absolute contact with reality, cleansing the language of our age. Raimondi’s texts are always political, in an empathetic sense. In just a very few lines he can break down the fundamental questions of political economy to a slice of bread, all the while staying grounded in his home town of Bahía Blanca with its major export harbour. For nearly two decades Raimondi has been working on a second volume, an enormous, encyclopaedic project that is nearing completion and will be entitled For an Annotated Dictionary. A selection appeared in German translation in 2012 from Berenberg Verlag under the title Für ein kommentiertes Wörterbuch. In 2018 Sergio Raimondi was a fellow of the Artists in Berlin Programme of the DAAD.
In his Berlin Lecture, Raimondi discusses Adorno’s call for a poetry that is commensurate with capitalism. Sergio Raimondi rejects this call as being boundless, since capitalism is itself boundless, he says, by its very nature and with all its global strategies. Does the poet have to operate with maps and statistics in order to give an appropriate poetic response? Answering this question in his Lecture and turning Adorno’s call on its head, Raimondi shows clearly that the poet has an equally boundless advantage. Capitalism is never up to the level of poetry.
Problems with Writing an Ode to the Pacific Ocean is being published for the event in a biligual Spanish-German edition (translated by Timo Berger) by Wallstein Verlag (€ 13.90).
The Lecture will be given in Spanish. The translations are available in German.
Project leader: Matthias Kniep
The 2019 Berlin Poetry Lecture: Sergio Raimondi– Problems with Writing an Ode to the Pacific Ocean is presented with the kind support of the German Foreign Ministry and the DAAD Artists in Berlin programme.
Akademie der künste
Kleines Parkett
Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Entrance fee:
6/4 €
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