Friederike Mayröcker

Friederike Mayröcker Poems

Friederike Mayröcker Biography

Friederike Mayröcker (born on December 20, 1924 in Vienna) is an Austrian poet. Life From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early. She started writing as a 15 year old. In 1946 she published her first works in the journal Plan. Friederike Mayröcker is recognized as one of the most important contemporary Austrian poets. She also had success with radio plays. Four of them she wrote together with Ernst Jandl, with whom she lived together from 1954 until his death in 2000. Mayröcker describes her working process as follows: "I live in pictures. I see everything in pictures, my complete past, memories are pictures. I transform pictures into language by climbing into the picture. I walk into it until it becomes language. Awards 1963: Theodor-Körner-Preis 1969: Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden für Fünf Mann Menschen (mit Ernst Jandl) 1975: Österreichischer Würdigungspreis für Literatur 1976: Preis der Stadt Wien für Literatur 1977: Georg-Trakl-Preis für Lyrik 1981: Anton-Wildgans-Preis 1982: Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis für Literatur 1982: Roswitha-Preis 1985: Literaturpreis des Südwestfunks Baden-Baden 1985: Ehrenmedaille der Bundeshauptstadt Wien in Gold 1987: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst 1989: Hans-Erich-Nossack-Preis 1993: Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis der Stadt Bad Homburg 1994: manuskripte-Preis 1995: Jurorin bei der Verleihung des Erich-Fried-Preises an Elke Erb 1996: Else-Lasker-Schüler-Lyrikpreis 1996: Großer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste 1997: America Awards Prize 1997: Meersburger Droste-Preis 1997: ORF-Hörspielpreis 2000: Christian-Wagner-Preis 2001: Karl-Sczuka-Preis für das Hörspiel Das Couvert der Vögel 2001: Georg-Büchner-Preis 2001: Ehrenpromotion der Universität Bielefeld 2004: Ehrenring der Stadt Wien 2008: Hörspiel-Kritikerpreis des ORF für Gärten, Schnäbel, ein Mirakel, ein Monolog, ein Hörspiel 2009: Hermann-Lenz-Preis für den Gedichtband Scardanelli[4] 2010: Peter-Huchel-Preis für dieses Jäckchen (nämlich) des Vogel Greif 2010: Horst-Bienek-Preis für Lyrik der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste 2011: Literaturpreis der Stadt Bremen für ich bin in der anstalt. Fusznoten zu einem nichtgeschriebenen Werk)

The Best Poem Of Friederike Mayröcker

The Bird Coach

for Christa Kühnholz

was it chicken children lapwings letterings
that along the pond and pastures :
clouds lush clouds and pastures : rippling
and where you saw 3 guys in straw yellow
van-Gogh-hats...this innocence this indirection
toward the lake and clattering tin bucket under overcast
weather it was pomegranates i.e. drops out of
a stormy sky : from the eaves
rattling and needle instrument inexplicable
weather instrument etc., the leek shoots and
parapluies in the woods above geranium gardens when
left in the rain they start
they bleed i.e. a white umbrella as
stuck in flowered ground : firn or
glacier snow on mountain nape,
chalked on the blackboard propped against the gate
to the Greek restaurant, the menu
starts off with some dish like GOD LAMB / LAMB
OF GOD, in a costume of rain and herolds :
1 black twig so bent and twisted
i.e. broken off the tree it formed
the poet's initial.

what do you need? a tree a house to
weigh how great how small our human life
gauge judge understand estimate conceive

how great how small when you look up to the tree top
and get lost in the lush luxuriant green
green lavish/luxuriant lush rank abundant beauty

how great how small when you think how short
your life compared with the life of trees
you need a tree you need a house
not all for yourself just a corner a roof
to sit to think to sleep to dream
to write to be silent to see your friend
the stars grass flower sky

Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop

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