‘I am a Double-voiced […] Bird’: Identity and Voice in Ulrike Almut Sandig's Poetry.

With reference chiefly to Dickicht (2011) and ich bin ein Feld voller Raps, verstecke die Rehe und leuchte wie dreizehn Ölgemälde übereinandergelegt (2016) this paper will demonstrate that voice is a key concern of the poet and that the voices created in Sandig's collections are deliberately constructed in various ways. Some contain literary quotations, some play with fairy tales and nursery rhymes. At issue for Sandig more than anything else is the ‘Hörbarkeit der Dichtung’: finding a voice for poetry, which also challenges conventional understandings of the link between voice and identity. What is more: many of the poems have a simultaneous life as songs, sound pieces, or in relation to films; others emerge in collaboration with artists, musicians or composers. This paper teases out Sandig's project with reference to her collections, her multi-media work, recent commissions and ‘Lied aus dem Off’, her lecture on voice as part of her Poetikdozentur in Mainz (2017) in order to understand how the idea of voice relates to her other literary concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]