Poetry | | Judith Kuckart |
Judith Kuckart
Born in 1959 in Schwelm | Dance training at the Folkwang School in Essen | Studies of literature and theatre in Cologne and Berlin | 1984 Assistant at the Choreographic Theatre in Heidelberg | In 1985 she founded the Skoronel Dance Theatre, at which she put on 17 shows until 1998 on various German and international stages, while participating as an author, dancer, choreographer and director | Since the beginning of the 1990s she has been publishing novels and narratives | Judith Kuckart is a member of the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany | The author now lives in Zurich and Berlin
More at www.judithkuckart.de
Prices and scholarships since 2000
Margarete-Schrader Prize for Literature from the University of Paderborn 2006 | Foundation Preußische Seehandlung, Working scholarship 2005 | Kranichsteiner Literature Prize, New York Scholarship 2004 | Zug Cultural Foundation Landis & Gyr, Budapest Visiting Scholarship 2004 | German Critics’ Prize 2004 | Herrenhaus Edenkoben, Visiting Scholarship, 2003 | Work Contribution Pro Helvetia 2002 | Art Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia 2001/ 2004 | Villa Aurora, Los Angeles 2000 | Villa Decius, Krakow 2000
Publications (Selection)
“Kaiserstraße” (Novel) 2006 Dumont, “Der Bibliothekar” (Novel – New Edition) 2004 Dumont, “Die Autorenwitwe” (Narratives) 2003 Dumont, “Lenas Liebe” (Novel) 2002 Dumont, “Blaubart wartet” (Theatre performance) 2002 S. Fischer, “Sätze mit Datum” (Radio drama) 2000 SWR, “Melancholie 1 oder die zwei Schwestern” (Theater) 1996 S. Fischer
Stories by things
Matchbox, clothespin, baking pan/heart, gold button, old key, light bulb/carbon filament, whistle, yellow 2CV as a keyring pendant, rubber lizard, candle holder from the Christmas tree, screwdriver, glass eye from the teddy bear, stamp, bobbin, screw, bicycle lock, tin butterfly, sandwich paper, glasses cleaning cloth, lip balm ... The same applies to objects that applies to death. They say nothing when you ask them. But they are emotionally charged. But that is up to us. They save memories, they retain recollections. They are electrified by us. Things are animated, we think. Things that we give away as gifts for love or to say goodbye are animated by love and by parting. For us they become a kind of intermediary design and perhaps we find in dialogue with them the most important things that can be said about us. But: what do the objects think about this? Their stories remain deaf until someone makes them speak - Us.
We will write stories about things which either make a thing speak about itself, about us and in a monological manner. Or we write a story, whose starting point and driving force is an object. This history should be written as a dialogue.
Application documents
Write a fictive will (testament) (not longer than one page): You may select from the following: “My will” | “The will of my dog” | “The will of my backpack” | “The will of my murderer”
Max. number of participants: 12
Reading: Los Angeles, shortly before Christmas 2000
Yesterday I was visiting the son of Arnold Schönberg and his wife Barbara. They live right next to where O.J. Simpson lived and the tourists come into the quiet street with a ban on parking. They come because of Simpson, not because of Schönberg. And this very son of Schönberg – whose first name was Ronald – was the judge in the first trial against Simpson. He acquitted the defendant in 1989. Simpson had hit the woman, who six years later was his wife and dead. Some people give the son of Arnold Schönberg the blame for the death of Simpson’s wife. In America the judges are often believed to be the guilty ones. I ate homemade Sacher cake at Schönberg’s house and spoke in German about beautiful women, Klimt’s beautiful women, Indians, early childhood injuries, the process of forgetting and Germany. At the end, we took pictures, in Schönberg’s former composing room. Even the deaf Schönberg dog, whose front teeth were pulled due to their ferocity, was in the picture. If an unknown dog comes, says Ronald Schönberg, his dog still proves to be menacing, but always in profile.
Los Angeles Airport, December 23, 2000
Speaking of reality as if it still did not exist that way, I think, while I write my last Christmas postcards and a dog barks “Jingle Bells” on a CD from a souvenir shop.
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