Alternative Imaginary Orders – Poesie lesen von: Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Veronica Forrest-Thomson (1947-1975) was born in Malaysia as the daughter of a rubber planter and grew up in Glasgow. As a student of the admired J. H. Prynne, she early came into the sphere of influence of the so-called Cambridge School, which she at the same time decisively influenced. She died at the age of 27 after a drug-alcohol-mix accident. Three volumes of her poetry exist, of which the last two, Language-Games (1971) and the posthumously published On the Periphery (1976), enjoy cult status. Also published posthumously was
Poetic Artifice, a theoretical work on 20th-century poetry that continues to resonate today and was a major influence on American L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, among others. The book is an erudite, witty, polemical reckoning with trends in the zeitgeist of the time. In it, Forrest-Thomson rejects realist-mimetic poetics (Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes especially arouse her displeasure), but also tendencies of concrete poetry. Poetic practice, for her, is a challenge to the linguistic order of the world, the production of fluctuating, self-sabotaging forms that may run counter to the original intent of the poem. "We make the rules as we go along," as Wittgenstein says, whose late philosophy Forrest-Thomson makes ample use of in her poems: "The image tells us itself, / This language game is played / Instead of, We have this experience."
Thanks to Norbert Lange's generous selection and translation, collected in the volume Zodiac Sign Sagittarius (roughbooks 2023), this great unfinished work of English poetry can now be discovered in this country.

The event will be interpreted English-German. With the kind support
of ECHOO Conference Interpreting

In reading and conversation: Norbert Lange | Redell Olsen

Moderation: Maximilian Mengeringhaus