Künstler 2006 – Der Wald im Zimmer

Björn Kuhligk

Björn Kuhligk Foto: gezett

Björn Kuhligk’s (born 1975, Berlin) poems revolve “half humorously, half solemnly around love, sex, birth, death, drinking, traveling, Berlin and music”. They are incisive snapshots that, often freely collaged onto one another, offer continual flashes of clarity. Even though his latest collection ”Die Stille zwischen Null und Eins” (The Stillness Between Zero and One) is set in the bucolic surroundings of Berlin, he maintains the critical, self-deprecatory distance that characterizes his city scenes and evades a schmaltzy romanticism of nature.

Kuhligk is also an organiser, supporter and cataloguer of the young German poetry scene. From 1996 until 1999 he ran the reading series “Die Schwarzleserey”. From 2002 till 2006 he was editor of the Berlin magazine “lauter niemand”, with Tom Schulz he published from 1997 until 1999 “edition minotaurus” and together with Jan Wagner he edited the 2003 and the 2008 anthologies “Lyrik von Jetzt” (Poetry from Now) I and II.

Most recently he won the 2013 Art Prize Literature from Brandenburg Lotto.

 

Publications (selected)

Es gibt hier keine Küstenstraßen. (There are no Coastal Streets Here) Poems, Lyrikedition 2001

Am Ende kommen Touristen. (At the End the Tourists Come) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2002

Großes Kino. (Big Cinema) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2005

Leben läuft. (Life Goes) Texts, SuKuLTuR Verlag 2005

Der Wald im Zimmer, Eine Harzreise (The Forest in the Room, a Harz Journey) (together with Jan Wagner), Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag 2007

Von der Oberfläche der Erde. (From the Face of the Earth) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2009

Bodenpersonal. (Floor Staff) Texts, Verlagshaus J. Frank 2010

Die Stille zwischen null und eins, (The Stillness Between Zero and One) Hanser 2013

Jan Wagner

Jan Wagner (born in 1971 in Hamburg) lives in Berlin. He is a freelance poet, literary critic and translator (of, among others, Matthew Sweeney and Simon Armitage) and was from 1995 to 2003 co-editor of the international literary journal-in-a-box Die Außenseite des Elements (The Outside of the Element). Together with Björn Kuhligk he co-edited the anthology Lyrik von Jetzt. 74 Stimmen (Poetry of the Now. 74 Voices) (DuMont Literatur- und Kunstverlag 2003) and the book Der Wald im Zimmer. Eine Harzreise (The Forest in the Room. A Journey in the Harz) (Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag 2007).
A great narrator in the small form, he combines with virtuosity the everyday with the mythical, classical poetic forms with free improvisation.
His precise language and imagery and his effortless playing with forms have brought him many prizes and awards including the 2004 Anna Seghers Prize and the 2011 Kranichstein Literature Prize. In that same year he was also awarded the Fellowship of the German Academy in Rome (Villa Massimo).
Publications (selection):
Probebohrung im Himmel. Berlin-Verlag 2001.
Guerickes Sperling. Berlin-Verlag, 2004.
Achtzehn Pasteten. Berlin-Verlag, 2007.
Australien. Berlin-Verlag, 2010.