Karl Mickel

Bier

Language: german

Bier
Für Leising

Maulfaul, schreibfaul bist du, Richard, gern
Stemm ich aufn Tisch zwei Ellenbogen
Und denke, es sind viere. Was steht zwischen
Uns? Bier. Helga! noch zwei große

Weiße Blumen auf dem gelben Stiel.
Was tue ich? sagst du, ich deute
An, sag ich. Die Wirklichweisen
Wenn die was sagen, sagen die: Naja

Ich kenne diese Frau, vom Hörensagen
Aber verbürgt: dreißig, neun Jahre am Fließband
Der zucken, wo sie geht und liegt, die Arme
Die läuft zum Psychiater, denn sie wünscht

Zu kündigen. Der Wunsch, klagt sie, sei krankhaft.
Wer Ohren hat zu sehen der wird schmecken.

Karl Mickel

photo © gezett.de

* 12.08.1935, Dresden, Germany
† 20.06.2000, Berlin, Germany

Karl Mickel was born 1935 in Dresden/GDR. He studied economic planning and economic history in East-Berlin. From 1959 till 1963 he was editor of the literature magazine Junge Kunst. Afterwards Mickel worked as a scientific assistant at the Academy for Economics in Berlin. He was also co-director of the Berliner Ensemble, where he worked with Ruth Berghaus, last professor at the Academy for Acting Ernst Busch, Berlin.

Mickel got famous as a poet, playwright and essayist. Together with Volker Braun, Heinz Czechowski, Bernd Jentzsch, Rainer Kirsch, Sarah Kirsch and Richard Leising, he belonged to a circle of friends that later got called the Sächsische Dichterschule. Also Elke Erb and Adolf Endler, together with whom Mickel edited the legendary anthology In diesem besseren Land in 1966, where close to that circle.

photo © gezett.de

In 1959 for the first time a poem of Mickel, then 24 years old, was published in an anthology. 1963 saw his first own volume of poetry Lobverse & Beschimpfungen. In 1966 Vita nova mea got published in East Germany and, one year later, also in the West. His following book Eisenzeit, too, got published in both Germanys (1975/77).

Mickel wrote poetry, plays, libretti, prose, a novel, speeches, articles and essays, a screenplay, laudations and obituaries. His poems got translated into English, Russian, Chinese and Hungarian. He translated a.o. Shakespeares Sonetts and poetry by Marina Zwetajewas and Jewgeni Jewtuschenko into German.

Between 1990 and 2000 his Complete Works where edited in six volumes by the Mitteldeutsche Verlag, Halle.

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