Walle Sayer

- Germany -

Born in 1960 in Bierlingen, which is not the place where beer was invented. A member of the German P.E.N. Center as well as the German Writer's Association (Verband Deutscher Schriftsteller), Walle Sayer received considerable praise for his work, including the Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis awarded by the City of Bad Homburg as well as the Swiss Vera-Piller-Poesiepreis. His poetry is marked by a striking degree of simplicity, an eye for details, and the little things that make life livable as well as unbearable. His recent book is titled »Strohhalm, Stützbalken« (Tübingen 2013) and, though the poems vary in theme and tone, they often summon memories of a (very German) childhood, or iconic objects from life in the hinterland, as well as the common man's occasional rather mediocre capacity for carnal lust.