Apfelernten mit Inger Christensen. (Silke Scheuermann, Jan Wagner, Uljana Wolf)

Abstract

Apple Picking with Inger Christensen. (Silke Scheuermann, Jan Wagner, Uljana Wolf)

Inger Christensen, maybe the most vividly received Danish writer in contemporary German poetry, is often discussed in the light of her poetry’s formal innovativeness. This paper will shift the focus on poetry’s relation to the world as another aspect repeatedly addressed by contemporary German poets when referring to Christensen’s work. Discussing three essays by Silke Scheuermann, Jan Wagner, and Uljana Wolf this paper traces their approaches to Inger Christensen’s poetry with a particular interest in personal encounters with nature and real-world sensual experiences as the core and outset of Inger Christensen’s poetic writings. The paper tries to conceptualize this perspective on her poetry by referring to the Haiku as a form of poetry that depicts a sensual and affective experience of nature along with Roland Barthes related concept of tangibilia on the one hand and to the sociological concept of resonance as developed by Hartmut Rosa on the other.