Poets

Barbara Köhler

Foto: Goethe-Institut / Barbara Köhler
Foto: Goethe-Institut / Natalie Soysa
Barbara Köhler was born in Burgstädt, in former East Germany, on April 11, 1959 and grew up in Penig. After leaving school, she spent some time working in the textile manufacturing industry in Plauen, in a care home for the elderly, and as a lighting assistant in the city theatre in Karl Marx Stadt (now Chemnitz). From 1985 to 1988 she studied at the Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig and began publishing work in magazines. After the fall of the Berlin Wall Köhler was unemployed and thus started working as a freelance author. Her debut collection, Deutsches Roulette (German Roulette), was published in 1991 by Suhrkamp Verlag. She wrote for diverse magazines, compiled essays and contributed towards the visual arts. Since 1996 she has worked with texts in space, and on multi-media projects, textual images, and text installations in public spaces.

In 2007 she published Niemands Frau: Gesänge (Nobody’s Wife: Cantos), which has won her several awards, including the Poetry Prize of the German Industry Culture Group in 2009. As the Poet-in-Residence at the University of Duisburg, she led a writing workshop for students. In 2012 she held the Thomas Kling-Poetics lectureship at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn. Barbara Köhler has been living in Duisburg since 1994.

Poems

DIE DOMINOSPIELER /
ඩොමිනෝ ක්‍රීඩාව / டொமினோ விளையாட்டு


GEDICHT /
කවිය / கவிதை