Along with the Oxford German Olympiad Prize-giving, throughout the month of June OGN ran a number of other events, all designed to offer an introduction to interesting pieces of German literature in as accessible and attention-grabbing a manner as possible. This post looks at the first of these sessions, aimed at younger learners, and includes resources that teachers can use for their own lessons.
Many of our local schools start teaching German around Year 8 or 9, so I decided to run a one-off session for pupils in Years 9 and 10 looking at ‘Modern German performance poetry’. Having advertised the topic as “very creative… and a little bit crazy” I hoped the poems would live up to expectations! The opening poem auf dem land by Ernst Jandl certainly provoked a good deal of surprise and laughter amongst the group, and already offered a sense of just what it can mean to “perform” a poem. Trying to name all of the animals mentioned proved a challenge in some cases (see how many you can get!) so this film from a Berlin primary school gave some helpful hints.
The main focus of the session was the poetry of Nora Gomringer, who has won a number of prestigious literary prizes including the Jakob-Grimm-Preis Deutsche Sprache (2011) and the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis (2015). Ursprungsalphabet is a fantastic poem for younger learners because the idea of an alphabetical poem going “Ich bin Ariadne… Rilkes Panther Tier-Pfleger… X-Men…” is easy to grasp and identifying familiar characters provides a great way in to closer analysis. This video shows Gomringer’s performative skills and her ability to truly entrance her audience, whether through her incredibly S-L-O-W rendition of “Ich bin die L-A-N-G-S-A-M-K-E-I-T” or the quirky inclusion of “X-Men” near the end.
Having experienced these poems, along with Gomringer’s Daheim (written with no spaces and performed at breakneck speed) the pupils were let loose to prepare their own performances or write short German poems in the style of Gomringer or Jandl. The results were impressive!
I think it’s safe to say that all the attendees left feeling that they had experienced a creative and crazy side to the German language and had an interesting first taste of German literature. Look out for my next post giving a roundup of our Year 11-12 reading groups…
Nicola Deboys, Oxford German Network Coordinator
Oxford German Network 