The Return of Habits

In this book, written in 2020/21, poems, notations, series of sentences and short prose come together to form a journal co-written by everyday events, the experience of crisis and the continuing effects of the past. »Instants decide where things go, the direction in which events move ... sentences from a past that has not ceased to have a say in the here and now«.

This is the continuation of a conversation with oneself that »emerges from the shadows of what has been said earlier«, which also means: the author visualises impulses and motifs that run through his earlier texts; he engages in repetition when it comes to discovering the buried rest of what was not said, what was overlooked or forgotten in what has been said before. »A memory repeats itself, but it seems to have changed, for now it tells everything quite differently.«

And so the past arrives with news that correspond with the news of the present, habits return that may have been forgotten but never disappeared. And in the process, experiences intersect and connections emerge that make the contradictions and deceptions, the uncertainties and possibilities of our current existence somewhat clear.

»Even though there is a hint of farewell in this book, this is not a late work. Jürgen Becker is too instantaneous, too alert for that. [...] Jürgen Becker’s poems simply do not stop speaking.« Peter Neumann, Die Zeit

»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

»If the deluge were to come now, one of the noblest tasks would be to save Jürgen Becker's books. They are a literary archive of the years we know.« 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

»Jürgen Becker has developed his own form of autobiographical writing in his works ... Many of Jürgen Becker's poems and prose pieces seem like collages. In them, he explores landscapes of consciousness that are always shaped by personal experience as well as by contemporary history.« Anja Höfer, SWR2