Rosa Pock
Rosa Pock, Vienna, 24 September 2024
“The question as to why I exist is superfluous.”
The poet Rosa Pock, born in the southern Styrian town of Wagna in 1949, had originally engaged mainly with questions of logic and philosophy. Married to H. C. Artmann from 1972 until his death in 2000, it was only fairly late in life—during the 1990s—that she was discovered by Alfred Kolleritsch for the realm of literature. The conversation with her runs much like a game of chance: in response to numbers spontaneously tossed out by the interviewer, she reads accordingly numbered passages from her most recent book, “Ein Jahr im Leben einer Infantin” [A Year in the Life of an Infanta], that relate tellingly to reminiscences of her life—of her childhood in the cafeteria run by her parents, of the young woman who spontaneously fell in love with H. C. Artmann in Berlin—and to her pointed, laconic account of an illusion-free but cheery path into language and writing.
“The question as to why I exist is superfluous.”
The poet Rosa Pock, born in the southern Styrian town of Wagna in 1949, had originally engaged mainly with questions of logic and philosophy. Married to H. C. Artmann from 1972 until his death in 2000, it was only fairly late in life—during the 1990s—that she was discovered by Alfred Kolleritsch for the realm of literature. The conversation with her runs much like a game of chance: in response to numbers spontaneously tossed out by the interviewer, she reads accordingly numbered passages from her most recent book, “Ein Jahr im Leben einer Infantin” [A Year in the Life of an Infanta], that relate tellingly to reminiscences of her life—of her childhood in the cafeteria run by her parents, of the young woman who spontaneously fell in love with H. C. Artmann in Berlin—and to her pointed, laconic account of an illusion-free but cheery path into language and writing.