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Steffen Jacobs (c) Theresia Jacobs
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Steffen Jacobs, born in 1968 in Düsseldorf, lives in Berlin. He is a poet, essayist, translator and editor of representative poetry anthologies (Die komischen Deutschen, Frankfurt a. M.: Zweitausendeins 2004; Die liebenden Deutschen, Frankfurt a.M.: Zweitausendeins 2006) and, under the pseudonym Jakob Stephan a poetry critic (Lyrische Visite oder Das nächste Gedicht, bitte! Zürich: Haffmans 2000). His prizes include the Hugo Ball Promotion Prize of the City of Pirmasens and the New York Fellowship of the Kranichstein Literature Prize and he is a member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature and of the PEN Centre Germany. Martin Mosebach has written about him, “Jacobs writes lean, elegant verse. Not only does he not know of the sacredness of metaphor, he does not use any metaphors either, which are generally expected as an identifying characteristic of poetry. … His verse has no fat, no sugar. It is fluent and civilised.”
Book recommendations: Angebot freundlicher Übernahme. Poems, Frankfurt a.M.: Haffmans bei Zweitausendeins 2002; Der Lyrik-TÜV. Ein Jahrhundert deutscher Dichtung wird geprüft. Essays, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn 2007 (Die Andere Bibliothek); Die Liebe im September. Poems, Göttingen: Wallstein 2010