Photo and poem: Michael Arenz: “Good literature is always sad”

The result of the fifth collaboration between the writer Michael Arenz and the photographer Hansgert Lambers was recently published under the title “An den Theken des Abendlandes” by his Ex-pose publishing house. Arenz lives in Bochum and Lambers in Berlin-Pankow. Once again, poems and prose by Michael Arenz were juxtaposed with photographs by Lambers in a kind of silent dialogue. It is the fifth collaboration between the two, after “Night when the day tells you” (2011), “The sincere capitalism of the metal gorilla” (2015, with a foreword by Hermann Peter Piwitt), “Late memory of an early premonition” ( 2018, Foreword by Gerhard Köpf) and “The Black Hotel” (2020).

The result reads like a commentary on the disastrous and depressing world situation without addressing current conflicts. Despite the dark tone, the reading occasionally evokes a sardonic laugh from the reader – in the sense of a nevertheless. I conducted an interview with Michael Arenz in November 2023 about his texts and the fruitful collaboration between him and Hansgert Lambers – by letter, since Arenz is not online.

How does the work process between you and Mr. Lambers work over a long distance and without email, since you consciously forego internet access?

In keeping with the requirements of a much-needed deceleration in all areas of life, our collaboration does not take place as a process, but rather as a very relaxed “Look what I wrote there” or vice versa “Look what I photographed there”. We understood something about each other from the start, both in terms of our working methods and our characters. We are mutually tolerant free spirits who do not want to be restricted or restrict our artistic ideas. As a happy coincidence, our projects were never about illustrating texts, but rather that we always tried to sense each other’s poetic vibrations and, in the best case scenario, were able to ensure that image and text penetrate and charge each other.

Hansgert once put it like this: 1 + 1 = 3. So something third comes into being. I sometimes had the feeling that Hansgert was the poet and I was the photographer. In the last few years I have sent every “freshly” written poem to Berlin by fax, no matter what time of day or night, so that Hansgert was always up to date about my current “production”. In return, I would sometimes receive dozens of photographs in the mail with which I could experiment with text-image combinations to my heart’s content.

Her poems and the few prose texts in the new volume signal a mood of melancholic retrospection, of “not anymore” or “just like that,” but are by no means sentimental. They also don’t forego harshness, sometimes a cold, sober look and drasticness in their words. In the penultimate issue of the book-shaped magazine “Der Mongole Waits” (No. 23, 2012), which you edited, there is the beautiful sentence in a text by Hermann Peter Piwitt: “In some souls it is always winter.” This sentence could be one of the texts collected here.

I have been reading the “Blätter für deutsche und internationalpolitik” for 35 years and after reading each issue I actually want to give myself the bullet, the analyzes of what is happening around the world seem so hopeless and bleak with regard to politics and the state of societies , the environment, actually everything – the list could go on and on. With the beginning of the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel/Palestine, a further level of escalation of horror has been reached, which is actually causing everyone to despair and some to fall into deep depression. In many souls there is therefore not just winter, but an ice age that oppresses everything. The “fun and stupid cheerfulness” segment is extensively served in the media with intention and a lot of energy, and without the help of a smile you can hardly dare to go out on the street in order not to attract unpleasant attention. When I was asked on the radio when I was making the magazine why I so often chose dark texts, I answered: “Good literature is always sad!” I still stand by that today. Who, if not we writers, who generally have a somewhat more experienced sensory system for mental turbulence, can bring this widespread unease, even unhappiness, into the light, name it, express it and put it on the agenda?!

The brutality of our time and its oppressive impact on most of us is the source of all unhappiness, and if we as writers respond to it adequately or very clearly, we cannot be blamed for the darkness of this world. Yes, we are killjoys. And turning it into politics, I think of the beautiful lyric by Franz-Josef Degenhardt, who in one of his older songs suggested an announcement for the stadium announcer in the Bundesliga to a full house: “Stop the nonsense! Now we’re discussing it!”

It may sound daring, but: In addition to the enjoyment of artistic texts, does writing also have a therapeutic effect in order to get rid of a portion of despair and sadness about the state of the world? A bit of luck can be achieved with a successful textry?

Susan Sontag once said that she writes to find out what she thinks. I like this assessment because it is sober and straightforward without any pathetic overtones or an exaggeration of literary work. When I have the impression that a text has been successful, that I have found the right words, there is indeed a moment of satisfaction that has little to do with pleasure. However, this moment is essential for finding the strength to keep putting a blank sheet of paper in front of yourself and trying to put your ideas into a stringent form. I always write close to reality; minimal impulses are often enough to pick up a trace and fully understand and describe a situation.

I am of the opinion that you cannot “write despair or sadness about the state of the world from your soul.” What you can do, however, is to get to the bottom of the causes of these emotional states, not to avoid the misfortune, but to look at it carefully and coolly and then analyze it. This takes away much of the impact of the disaster. What I can precisely name loses power not only over me, but hopefully also over those who read these texts and can see themselves in them. I don’t feel happy about a successful text. Happiness is a big word. This feeling, this experience is incredibly precious and therefore, at least for me, only experienced very rarely.

The reception of poetry and non-rhyming poems has never been easy. How did the feature section react to your poems? The »FAZ”, for example, has a long tradition of publishing poems with the “Frankfurt Anthology”.decorate.

In terms of public attention, Hansgert and I’s joint books did not make it into the features section of the major bourgeois German daily newspapers. However, in addition to this newspaper and the “Junge Welt”, some papers from the Little Mag scene have opened up and also reported on it appreciatively, approximately »Down!”»floppy myriapoda” and »DreckSack”, in which I and partly also Hansgert have been publishing regularly for years. I feel very comfortable in this editorial environment, especially since it has created intensive personal contacts and friendships.

In my opinion, within literature, poetry remains more of an orchid segment that generally not as many people can warm to as novels, short stories or non-fiction books. In order to attract the attention of high-circulation newspapers such as the “FAZ” you mentioned, the advocacy of influential cultural mediators is required. I don’t have the time or any ambition for the egg dances that I would have to perform in order to generate goodwill among them. Some editors probably also believe that, as an author living in the Ruhr region, coke dust still trickles between my toes when I walk.

Michael Arenz/Hansgert Lambers: At the counters of the West. With a greeting from Hermann Peter Piwitt and an afterword by. Gerd Adloff. ex pose publishing house, 128 pages, br., 33 €.