Alias Alice

Then there’s Tilde, who runs over a deer time and time again – namely, ‘the Repeated Deer’… Whilst the world, and with it humanity, is changing at breakneck speed, a general state of feralisation sets in. Big cats roam Germany. Behind the (rear) mirrors in Georg Leß’s poem, everyday rituals and mysticism collide with bone-hard natural phenomena.

The world also presents itself as ever-changing in Birgit Kreipe’s work. Here, too, we follow a wide-awake, dreamlike driver – who is gradually becoming a little wild – on long journeys through a volcanic highland full of frozen eruptions, breakdowns and new beginnings from prehistoric times, which, slowly crumbling, intrude into her present. Meanwhile, acute upheavals – political, private – pile up behind her brow – try, if you can, to separate them – and cast explosive shadows upon a meditative world of stone. *imago* is due to be published by kookbooks in 2026.

In her new poems, Daniela Seel turns her gaze to lichens and other masters of survival in adverse conditions. She explores a language of legends to reflect on changes in the foundations of our existence. How did people thousands of years ago cope with natural disasters and radical upheavals in their way of life, and how did they pass on their knowledge? And what can we learn from their way of storytelling for our own approach to the current and yet-to-come upheavals caused by the climate crisis?

(in German)