A bird in the wrist - reading concert with Frieda Paris and the Ensemble Recherche in the "Kompass: 8 Visions" series

"the poem is like a message in a bottle/ or a postcard/ is unthinkable without you/ is heading towards us"

Frieda Paris' long poem "Nachwasser" (Voland & Quist, 2024), which won the Austrian Book Prize Debut, is built like a mobile: a floating structure that opens up on all sides, unfolds, enriches itself with whispers from her "word mothers" or the bird that has built its nest on her writing shoulder. From there, the reader also looks at the creation of the text at the SCHNEIDETISCH, at stranded poetry, tear salts, childhood words - and the backs of notes from Friederike Mayröcker's estate.
Sofia von Atzingen (viola) and Åsa Åkerberg (cello) from Ensemble Recherche respond to passages from this feather-light and delightful text with playful scenes and invocations of musical role models from György Kurtág's set "Signs, Games and Messages" (1989-2005), with improvisations and plucked comments from the wrist.
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Photo: © Frieda Paris © El Menges, Sofia von Atzingen and Åsa Åkerberg © Peter Gwiazda

Co-organizer: Ensemble Recherche

Supported as part of the Literatursommer 2026 - A series of events by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, www.literatursommer.de

Date: 21.06.2026, 11 a.m.
Location: Literaturhaus Freiburg, Bertoldstraße 17
Admission: 11/ 7 euros

Reading and concert
Literaturhaus