Uwe Kolbe and Uljana Wolf in conversation with Susan Bernofsky
I arrived late, after Uljana Wolf had read her poems, but in time to hear Uwe Kolbe read "Fathers and Sons." The panel description tells us that "These two writers from Germany woke up one day to realize that their lives were built on some terrible lies. Uwe Kolbe discovered that his own father had been spying on him for the Stasi, and Uljana Wolf had a similar awakening. Find out how they put the truth of their lives back together, came to reinterpret their pasts, and how these understandings influenced their writing." From this description, one can draw a connection to Kolbe's poem, even though it doesn't read explicitly autobiographical.
Wolf and Kolbe offered reflections on their status as post-war writers, though they represent different generations. Kolbe was already an adult in 1989; Wolf, a ten-year old child. Their perspectives and experiences may differ but they acknowledge that so much remains to be uncovered and understood with regard to East Germany, and their works respectively emerge from this desire to make sense of the past. They continue to breathe the "air of suspicion," as Kolbe calls it. At the same time, their work has also moved in other directions, to other times and places.
Q&A: An audience member was not pleased by what she perceived to be an evasion of the original topic. "Can we address the topic of the panel?" meaning, I suppose, the personal 'unbearable truths' hinted at in the description. I understand that hearing these personal narratives may have motivated attendance but the question also missed the point, which is how these true stories find expression in or shape their poems. Someone at the festival said "poetry concerns itself with the truth." This isn't a point I care to argue, but the panel highlighted a familiar tension between talkshow truth and partial truths. How does poetry concern itself with what is unbearably or unbelievably true? Maybe like this:
FATHER AND SON
Keeping the distance
and staying close together
with dangling arms.
The father the uniform,
the son with Rasta hair.
The Father's got Prussia in his rucksack,
the son on the surfboard
towards the mouth of the river.
The Father travelling,
the son the internal emigration.
The Father the letters,
the son doesn‘t speak.
Father, who takes it easy,
son to his heart.
Fighting each other without rules,
more seriously than anytime at the playground,
longer than lifelong.
The Fathers never die,
one hears since ears have existed,
and seldom do the sons live.
© Translation: 2001, Sapphire/Ramona Lofton
What is the true story: In 1989, after the Wall came down, some artists were "invited" to see their Stasi files. It was discovered that the poet Sacha Anderson, a friend of many East German artists, had been a Stasi informant. "Like a spider sitting in a net."
In 1992, Kolbe was able to read his file. "[It was] like someone wrote you a biography, and autobiography, yet you had no idea." He flipped through the pages, and came upon a few written in familiar type. He recognized it as his father's typewriter print. Kolbe was estranged from his father, and when he confronted him, his father defended his actions, claiming that the information he provided kept the Stasi from engaging in more extensive investigations. "I defended you," his father said. Another informer was a good, older friend. According to Kolbe, that betrayal carried more of a sting.
Citing Gabriel García Márquez as an example, Kolbe remarked that "most of what 'real' literature is is telling your own story." Post-war writers "are just telling their own story, coming from different places...east or west, or whatever."
From where I was sitting, I had trouble hearing Wolf and didn't take as many notes when she spoke. Her poems are wonderful, mesmerizing. Here's a link to a few from DICHTionary, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky.
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