Norbert Hummelt © Laura Baginsili
Norbert Hummelt [Germany]
The poet, translator, and cultural journalist Norbert Hummelt was born in Neuss in 1962. He studied English and German in Cologne from 1983 until 1990. He wrote his first literary texts in 1984 and has been writing poetry since 1986. He worked with Marcel Beyer and, like him, began as an experimental author in the footsteps of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann and Thomas Kling. Hummelt has been a freelance writer since 1991. In 1993, his first volume of poetry appeared under the title »knackige codes« (tr: Crisp Codes). In his second volume of poetry, »singtrieb« (1997; tr: Appetite For Singing), he turned to the concepts of romantic poetry. In »zeichen im schnee« (2001; tr: signs in the snow), Hummelt makes virtuoso use of poetic traditions, only to break them again in condensed snapshots. In »Stille Quellen« (2004; tr: Silent Fonts) he also draws inspiration from Eichendorff, Benn, and Jandl, while continuing his experimental writing. He explores the myth of Pan in the texts of the volume »Pans Stunde« (2011; tr: Pan’s Hour), which also explore the polarity between fear and erotic attraction. The focus of the volume »Sonnengesang« (2020; tr: Sun Song) is the sun, its light, and the human being who cannot live without it.
Hummelt’s most recent publication is the documentary book »1922. Wunderjahr der Worte« (2022; tr: 1922: Miracle Year for Words). The book follows authors across Europe through the titular year with its exuberant creative energy, in which a multitude of astonishing literary works were produced: from James Joyce’s »Ulysses« and Virginia Woolf’s »A Room of One’s Own« to Rainer Maria Rilke’s »Duino Elegies« and the »Short Stories« of Katherine Mansfield. »There is a certain cultural-theoretical allure in his emphatic archaeology of 1922, which lies in reinterpreting events that occurred more or less coincidentally at the same time into a grand panorama of a far-reaching aesthetic upheaval.« (»Der Tagesspiegel«).
Hummelt has also worked as a journalist for various newspapers and radio stations. Since the late 1990s, he has written numerous essays and features on literary history and poetics. From 1988 to 1992, he was head of the Authors’ Workshop at the University of Cologne. For his literary work, Hummelt has been awarded the NRW Prize for Literature (1995), the Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Prize of the City of Cologne (1996), the Mondsee Poetry Prize (1998), the Lower Rhine Literature Prize of the City of Krefeld (2007), the Hölty Prize for Poetry (2018), and the Rainer Malkowski Prize (2021), among others. He also translated, mainly from English, and edited, among others, the works of W.B. Yeats and retranslated T.S. Eliot’s poetry cycles »The Waste Land« and »Four Quartets« into German. For many years he lived in the Bergisches Land region near Cologne, and since 2006 he has been based in Berlin. He teaches at the German Literature Institute Leipzig and works for the magazine »text+kritik«.
Bibliography
knackige codes
Galrev
Berlin, 1993
singtrieb
Urs Engeler Editor
Weil am Rhein, 1997
zeichen im schnee
Luchterhand
München, 2001
Stille Quellen
Luchterhand
München, 2004
Totentanz
Luchterhand
München, 2007
Wie Gedichte entstehen
[mit Klaus Siblewski]
Luchterhand
München, 2009
Pans Stunde
Luchterhand
München, 2011
Fegefeuer
Luchterhand
München, 2016
Der Atlas der Erinnerung
NIMBUS
Wädenswil, 2018
Sonnengesang
Luchterhand
München, 2020
1922: Wunderjahr der Worte
Luchterhand
München, 2022
singtrieb
Urs Engeler Editor
Weil am Rhein, 1997