Dresden. Dresden’s new city clerk had applied with eloquent poems. And then, shortly before she moved into Dresden, made headlines as a critic of the corona policy. Above all, it was an essay by Kathrin Schmidt in the relevant Rubikon portal that left some speechless, and made others, who otherwise might have less to do with poets, even more loud.
Dresden’s Mayor of Culture Annekatrin Klepsch (Die Linke) spoke of a shit storm that rattled on the jury and the city. And about the fact that she asked herself whether she should come to the poet’s traditional inaugural lecture – including a welcoming speech for the 63-year-old native of Thuringia, who has so far presented eight volumes of poetry and five novels, among other things. With one, “You do not die”, she won the German Book Prize and became known to a larger audience.
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Mayoress: “Outrageous” text
Would Corona determine the reading? Schmidt’s thesis of the human experiments carried out by the government and the pharmaceutical lobby, especially on children to be vaccinated? The silence in the forest is unbearably loud, writes Schmidt at Rubikon. Or would the subject be gallantly circumnavigated on the deep waters of poetry?
Even before the award-winning poet said a word, the answer seemed to have been given. Annekatrin Klepsch did not dwell long with her well-meaning words of appreciation. Your welcome became a public statement and reprimand, for which there are few examples in the city’s cultural life. With the reference to the freedom of art and the necessity of open discourse, especially in times of crisis, she combined the wish that Schmidt should know how to use her six months in Dresden with her “special sensitivity”.
What she does not understand by this, she then made clear: Schmidt’s text in the Rubicon was “difficult to bear”, “monstrous” her statements about the vaccination as a human experiment, which Schmidt explicitly did not equate with Nazi crimes, but put them in context. Klepsch mentioned the more than 1,000 corona deaths in Dresden alone, the 3,600 employees in city clinics who were in an unprecedented mission during the pandemic. And speaks of respect for those who asked for their comment. Kathrin Schmidt hardly looks at her, remains motionless.
Just off the lower average
Until the actual reading begins. To the long preface, Schmidt says – nothing. She immediately reads two stories. It was agreed that only literature would be discussed, explains SZ journalist Karin Großmann as the evening’s moderator. And so it happens. The prose is artful and laconic and touches the rather hapless lives of small people. A protagonist longs for youthfulness and more than average, below average.
Kathrin Schuster is asked whether she feels sorry for her characters: “Quite the opposite.” The men in the story “Tiefer Schafsee” lose their community through a biogas plant that takes some and gives some. There are fine observations, ideas that Kathrin Schmidt came up with during stays here on the coast. It will be interesting to see whether Dresden, whether Saxony donates such stories. The author did not promise this at her inaugural reading.
Poems follow. “Apples in abandoned gardens.” Again it is losses, whether that of the father in the Gelben Elend Bautzen or the European idea that determine Schmidt’s texts. A bicycle messenger appears in the penultimate poem. If you really want to, you can see a current reference here – which the texts you have presented otherwise leave out entirely.
Politically? Poetic? The time will tell
Kathrin Schmidt wants to devote the time in her town clerk’s apartment in Pieschen to working on a “crazy book”, as she puts it. It’s about the reconstruction of a family history from an accidentally found World War II diary. Dresden plays a major role as a transit station for an escape, says Schmidt, who uses the word Corona when telling about her research. Libraries and archives were closed, she looked for everything on the Internet. “Found so much. That was awesome.”
There were initially no questions from the 50 or so invited guests on Friday evening. Everyone else could via free livestream watch. And you might ask: Will Kathrin Schmidt use her role as town clerk for political texts as well? Does the Mayor of Culture describe her further writing and admission as “monstrous”? Or does she dedicate herself entirely to her core business – empathic, aesthetic literature?
Further articles
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It might be premature to take the poet’s reading as an indication. After the very specific allegations on the part of the city, the silence in Kathrin Schmidt’s forest was too loud for that.
The full length of the speeches and the inaugural reading can be found here:
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