Christine Langer

- Germany -

Christine Langer was born in 1966 in Ulm, Germany, where she lives today. She has worked as a literary critic since 2000 and served as the editor-in-chief for the literary magazine Konzepte •Zeitschrift für Literatur since 2003. Since 2013 she has been a jury member at the Ministry of Science, Research, and Art in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

 

She has published four volumes of poetry with Klöpfer & Meyer: “Lichtrisse” (2007), “Findelgesichter” (2010), “Jazz in den Wolken” (2015), and “Körperalphabet” (2018).

 

Numerous poems of hers have been set to music and performed by orchestras from Linz, Bratislava, and Bukarest. She has received a great many awards for her work, such as the residency at Villa Vigoni, Italy, the Prize for Poetry awarded by the international conference on Lake Constance, “Book of the Month (March)” selected by the renowned Darmstadt literary Jury, as well as the annual stipend granted by the Ministry of Science, Research, and Art in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

 

In addition, her work has been published in seminal anthologies as well as major newspapers and magazines, such as Der große Conrady, Jahrbuch der Lyrik, Akzente, allmende, DAS GEDICHT, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.


Note on the Poetry Collection “Körperalphabet” (“Alphabet. Body of Characters”)

 

Interiors 

In her poetry, Christine Langer connects the dots between nature and her own identity. Commonplace things are inserted between the removed gaze and closeness. Her poetry travels along the boundaries of opposites and thereby makes their dissolution possible. Christine has written about “alliterations in green,” the “Melding of barley awns and the body” and, in doing so, she gives a voice to the events between and behind things. She delves into the “courting eyelashes of poplars” and looks for the “beginning of the line upon skin.” Opening oneself to interiors is important to her, because these interiors allow for an exchange with the outside world and make the individual moment vivid. The poetic, gripping network of references and relationships connects the mind with the body on a sensual level. The rhythm of her language and the composition of the senses by way of often open-ended images awaken individual associations, provoke interpretations, and endow her poetry with “floating windows of time.” Open spaces of mind emerge that are full of power, ease, and witnessed intensity. Ways of seeing things are enlarged, perspectives become available, and points of view are reconsidered. The “inner eye” is stimulated, experience is intensified – the present is finally opened up to creative interpretation.