Lucija Stupica | © Wikimedia Commons
Insert a coin, push a button and grab your poem! Munich’s first poetry vending machine was opened at Villa Stuck in December 2022. Starting in June, lovers of verse can now nourish their soul in the same way at the Lyrik Kabinett. Within eyeshot of a Hans Magnus Enzensberger poetry vending machine, the new mechanical retailer – entitled I’d really rather be a poem – features works from the Lyrik Kabinett’s latest anniversary-year anthology, but also verses from the impressive anthology Mein Nachbar auf der Wolke (My Neighbor on a Cloud), published via the Hanser Verlag by Matthias Göritz, Amalija Maček and Aleš Šteger. The latter anthology introduces the reader to the astonishingly rich vein of 20th-century Slovenian poetry.
The initiative to launch poetry vending machines in Munich was the brainchild of Matthias Göritz, who is always looking for ways to inject poetry into everyday life. Born in 1969, a lyricist, novelist and translator from American English and Slovenian, Göritz lectures at Washington University in St. Louis and will, in fall 2023, curate Slovenia’s presence as a guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Following the official inauguration of the vending machine and a welcome address by Maša Šiftar (Consul General of Slovenia) and Ulrike Roos (Bavaria Reads), Göritz and two guests from Slovenia – Lucija Stupica (1971) and Jure Jakob (1977) – will read selected poems from the Slovenian anthology stocked in the vending machine.
Welcome address: Maša Šiftar (Consul General of Slovenia), Ulrike Roos (Bayern liest e.V.)
Organized in cooperation with Bayern liest e.V. (Bavaria Reads) and the German Academy for Language and Literature, with the kind support of the Slovenian cultural information center SKICA Berlin and the Slovenian Book Agency JAK.
Tickets: 8 euros/6 euros (discount rate). Lyrik Kabinett members receive free admission. For more information, please visit the Lyrik Kabinett website. The event will be held in German.
LMU and the Lyrik Kabinett have worked together very intensively for over 30 years. The more than 70,000 works subsumed under the Lyrik Kabinett Foundation are available via OPAC to everyone related to LMU. Numerous events provide a fascinating insight into the current poetic landscape.