cahier

Friederike Mayröcker doesn’t have time. Neither for résumé and memory, nor for extensive observations and reasoning and certainly not for storytelling. She doesn’t even have time for life itself if it isn’t one of writing. What counts is poetry alone, as well as »the echo-like inventions« contained in her writings, of a life that has lasted for almost a century already. On the outside, this life may be subjected to the impositions of the finitude of all human existence – on the inside and in its transformation into the eternal moment, it is constantly gaining new ways of experiencing: »(The years are becoming more incredible), the blue, slits of the sky, am ambivalent.«

After the édtudes, the »shreddings« and fragments, Friederike Mayröcker has now created a »cahier or booklet«, as she calls it, the second installment of a trilogy. In radically concentrated language and compellingly beautiful images, she showcases a life that follows only one maxim: »not only the written but existence as well hasz to be poetic.«

»What a declaration of love to the German language« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Fragments full of wisdom and beauty« Norbert Hummelt, Der Tagesspiegel

»cahier is the second installment of Friederike Mayröcker’s trilogy with ›prose-textures‹. In it, she moves between poetry and prose with wonderful ease.« Carola Wiemers, Deutschlandfunk

»With cahier, Friederike Mayröcker has created a masterpiece. This volume is dense like a rock and tender like the most delicate of membranes. This notebook stands adamant in German literature. But everyone who wishes to do so, can take it to the heart of their own life.« Klaus Kastberger, Die Presse, Wien

»A highly poetic book, more a musical score than a piece of writing. More evidence for Friederike Mayröcker’s virtuosity.« Silvia Hess, Buchkultur Dezember 2014

»... cahier is a sum, a ›moreandmore‹, atop of which Friederike Mayröcker sits, smiling and wise.« Paul Jandl, Die Literarische Welt

»The consistent sustainability with which the poet drives her sophisticated method of literary bionics […] to the edge of reason is breathtaking yet again.« Michaela Schmitz, Literaturhaus Wien