Suhrkamp Insel

Poetry owes many evergreens to »occasional poems«. In the case of Friedrich Ani, such poems constitute deliberate addressing, musically worded compositions if one considers current political-individual situations the occasion to which one must react immediately, showing oneself and the counterpart in all its vulnerability. These realistic-spontaneous sounds find very different forms: from the rhyming short poem to the prose poem to the extensive cycle.

Melancholy grounds such poems

And we, who never were, will
never be. In the memories
of others no shadows adorn the
asphalt,

but they subvert resignation with their ironic rhythm

Don’t cry, little
wind, the rain does not
have other
eyes.

»Musical and melancholically beautiful.« Andrea Gerk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»[…] precise and intelligent.« Anke Schäfer, Oberpfalzmedien

»For friends of Friedrich Ani’s sophisticated crime novels these poems show a different side of the author, who is capable of sounding out the depths of the human inner life like hardly anyone else.« Winfried Stanzick, versalia.de

»In My Father’s Room is a remarkable volume of poetry. From the interplay of content, sound and rhythm develops closeness in verse.« Thorsten Schulte, literaturkritik.de