Excursions into German History and Poetic Voices: Marcel Beyer's Falsches Futter1

Abstract

In contrast to the critical attention given to Marcel Beyer's novels Flughunde (1995), Spione (2000), and Kaltenburg (2008), his cycle of poems Falsches Futter (1997) has received little similar comment. Based on Beyer's criticism of poetry in the service of (Nazi) ideology in Falsches Futter, and drawing from his comments on poetry in his nonfictional publications, this article investigates how the poems embrace yet also disavow communication with readers, in order to reject poetry as ethical and political orientation and engage readers in an open dialogue about Germany's past and present. By using disparate images and cryptic allusions, and by mixing his poetic voice with those of Brecht, Benn, and others, Beyer creates a multi‐layered poetic discourse that oscillates between constructing and rejecting an intelligible world in its presentation of twentieth‐century German history, and that both questions and affirms the functionality of poetic discourse. Thus despite his skepticism toward language, Beyer embraces a provocative poetry as playful resistance to reality, which in Falsches Futter is overshadowed by violence, disillusionment, and desolation.