tango - Gendai-Haiku (hiq & pun)

2 reviews by Brigitte ten Brink and Rüdiger Jung

Review by Brigitte ten Brink
to: tango - hiq & word play

Gabriele Hartmann writes, paints and takes photos in the Westerwald. She is not only an astute observer and witty author, who has devoted herself to writing poetry and prose in the Japanese tradition, but an equally imaginative and resourceful painter, with constantly new design ideas for her books. And so this book has also become a small work of art. First of all, the format should be mentioned - 21 cm wide by 10 cm high, the third of a DIN A4 page, so to speak. The ring binding makes it easy to flip through the slightly more than 100 pages. The cover in red and black is an eye-catcher. In the lower left corner something reminiscent of a spider, with small white and blue accents. The lettering is in black and red and in accordance with the content announced in the title in lower case and unusual spelling - a small foretaste of what awaits the reader inside the book. Gabriele Hartmann becomes gabrielehartmann and hiq is basically nothing other than ha / i / ku, i.e. haiku. Of course, the hiq are not haiku in the traditional, classic sense. They are very modern haiku that ignore the conventional haiku rules and create new rules which, in my opinion, also go beyond the gendai haiku, as modern haiku is called. Here new lyrical dimensions open up, creative and innovative and extraordinary, but always based on the haiku pillars, which are brevity, concreteness, presence and openness.

Already in the title it becomes clear what the author is about: seeing things a little differently, brushing words and sentences against the grain, writing them together in an unusual way, ignoring the word boundaries, teasing out immanent concepts and thus new meaningfulness let develop. And in a very serious but at the same time playful way. You have to think outside the box when philosophical, physical, cosmic or other terms from science suddenly stand close together in intimate togetherness, merge in close dance with the everyday. “Engtanz”, derived from the book title “tango”, which is a tight dance, is the name of the first chapter with the hiq.

armalcolitamendederbracheeinneueswort (p. 8)

String theory what we are connected to today (p. 39)

trappist1 under observance distant relative (p. 65)

Admittedly, every now and then you have to look it up because one or the other term is not so common. But it is a lot of fun and also has a learning effect, to separate the individual expressions from the engtanz, to get on the track of the hiq, to ​​feel overwhelmed by the expressiveness and to be touched by the meaningful content.

The second chapter is entitled “11entanz”. These are the word games announced in the book title. They cannot always be seen through at first glance, which is why you are all the more pleased when you have succeeded in deciphering Gabriele Hartmann's tricky gimmicks, perhaps you can even call it unraveling. What is remarkable, however, is the constant existential background of her hiq and her puns.

Gabriele Hartmann uses various methods for her play on words in this chapter.

At one point she plays with exchanging letters or deleting words so that a new meaning arises.

. G
Al most rhythmic failures (p. 74)
. k

or by filtering out further words within a sentence or a word.

I want everything to stay as it is (p. 75)

Then she plays with the literal meaning of numbers

all1indern8er3stemichamglückzu2feln (S.80)

or by filtering out further words within a sentence or a word.

nursoNEIDee (p. 86)

humANIMAListic (p.101)

The backing of each page with the word tango, written in large, light gray letters, and the resumption of the spider motif before the beginning of the two chapters, brings liveliness to the book and to the pages. A very nice design idea that rounds off the work.

***

Review by Rüdiger Jung
to tango - hiq & word play

... A festival for the synapses! It welcomes us on the front page:

composer
hi word game
gabrielehartmannbon-say-publisher

and says goodbye with the imprint:

composer
engtanzhiq & 11dance pun
paired to a hybrid contemporary style
allrightgabrielehartmannbon-say-publisher
curious? www.bon-say.de

Argentina or Finland? Gabriele Hartmann's alternative is different: tight dance or elf dance.

tight dance
pull

First of all, the tight dance arouses erotic associations, whereby it is exhausting for words and demands quite a lot from readers. Not only the punctuation marks, but also the empty beat between the words is missing. In other words, the words cannot be read without reading them to the letter.

why not nothing

Of course, the (refuted!) Ontological proof of God by Anselm from Canterbury resounds. But also the ancient Thaumazein, the amazement as the basis of any philosophy. As it were in psalm key, the following:

why-my-life

“Japanese mono no aware” is the keyword for the fact that beauty is cheaper than the price of impermanence. Unfortunately, human beings are in the process of extremely accelerating the transience of creation. Anthropocene is the term used to describe the earth age, which was shaped by humans (quite destructively). Gabriele Hartmann finds a compelling poetic formula for this:

ursuppea seasoned after

Close your eyes and by no means is the magic formula - no matter how otherwise the Triassic see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing:

three monkeys all have a sense of purpose

Even if the narrow dance is accompanied by a minimalism of linguistic means, the explosive power is suitable for swirling different worldviews - for example western teleology and the cyclical east:

end time the cards re-shuffled

Then the elf dance begins:

11 dance
Pun

Fairy tales can be fairytale - think of the "fairy tales"! In contrast to the trolls, the elves stand for lightness and swing. And of course the word games as a sign of homosexuality cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, I would like to take the elves equally as a reference to the number. It is not for nothing that the carnival begins at the eleventh eleventh at eleven o'clock. The elf is a metaphysical number. The twelve, the three times four of God and the world, stands biblically for perfection (examples: the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples of Jesus). One thing less, the eleven (the disciples after the loss of Judas) 'stand for the opposite: the imperfection and the questioning of all certainties. So no elf dance without a moment of foolishness! In fact, in the elven dance words are read against the grain, which of course always reveals deeper layers.

Nothing

is by no means a manifesto of nihilism. Rather baroque complaint (and warning) from Vanitas. The vanity of the three majuscules stands before the eyes: the person who sets himself apart from his surroundings, his living space and, at worst, destroys both. A me in haiku? why not - if it doesn't forget what its life is based on! The warning has a specifically Christian variant:

church

Humility is the attitude that God gives in Jesus Christ. In the spirit of John the Baptist: "He has to grow, but I have to lose weight" (John 3:30). Sometimes a turn in the order of the letters is enough to make a whole theory sensible - and on top of that to transform it into art:

kamasuART

Based on the extent to which the Kamasutra has an erotic connotation, this gives the purest formula for the fact that the culture owes itself to the lack of instinct (or its sublimation). I particularly like the last elf dance:

standstill

We usually come across “standstill” as a problem indicator, “ill” as an English word reinforces this impression. Gabriele Hartmann brushes the words against the grain with elven ease, and I know that "standing still" is neither "sick" nor "crazy"! Breaks (also creative!) Can be as vital as the elf dance as an alternative to the tight dance!