Collected Poems

To mark Jürgen Becker’s 90th birthday on July 10, 2022, Suhrkamp presents this collection of all the volumes of poetry published between 1971 and 2022 alongside an extensive afterword by Marion Poschmann. This edition contains the collected poems, as well as collages and images by Rango Bohne and photographs by Boris Becker.

»Jürgen Becker’s work traces the temporal structure of individual perception, the simultaneity of non-simultaneity in the close observation of everyday events but also in the movements of memory with impressive consistency. Thus, as if in passing, a chronicle of the Federal Republic of Germany emerges, from the experience of war to reunification to the smartphone age. The poems show us as historical beings, full of inner fractures, always on the brink of the unknown, the unmanageable, the disappearing.« Marion Poschmann

Content:
Schnee
Das Ende der Landschaftsmalerei
Erzähl mir nichts vom Krieg
In der verbleibenden Zeit
Die gemachten Geräusche
Fenster und Stimmen
Odenthals Küste
Gedicht von der wiedervereinigten Landschaft
Das englische Fenster
Foxtrott im Erfurter Stadion
Geräumtes Gelände
Korrespondenzen mit Landschaft
Journal der Wiederholungen
Dorfrand mit Tankstelle
Scheunen im Gelände
Graugänse über Toronto
Die Rückkehr der Gewohnheiten

»Jürgen Becker is the great poet of the landscape of consciousness.« Marion Poschmann

»Becker is an author who works with recombination [...] For more than half a century, he has succeeded in [...] always sounding fresh and different. He is a DJ of his own material who never bores his audience, a collagist and montage artist who always succeeds in creating concise images of language, thought and perception.« Tobias Lehmkuhl, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Once more, Becker shows how precisely he treats […] moments and associations.« Nico Bleutge, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»On his 90th birthday, we shouldn’t congratulate him but all those who read and admire him.« Herbert Wiesner, WAMS

»Becker is a master of detail, of close observation. He turns everyday experiences into poetic events.« Martin Oehlen, Frankfurter Rundschau

»It is characteristic of Becker that writing is always related to sensual stimuli. His poems have visual or acoustic triggers, and the concrete writing self is constructed anew in each respective moment.« Helmut Böttiger, taz. die tageszeitung

»In these poems there is room for the entire world.« Thomas Geiger, Berliner Zeitung

»Becker’s poetry forms a kaleidoscope of the fleetingness we live every day.« Hans-Dieter Schütt, neues deutschland