Description:
In this mini-collection Vetsch covers an astonishing range of experience. Light and playful, it also acknowledges martyrdom and genocide. Vetsch moves on and we move with him, remembering the color of rust and blood staining river water.
Brief description: Florian Vetsch grew up in Buchs SG and in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where he attended the Kantonsschule am Burggraben. He studied philosophy, German and literary criticism in Zurich and received his doctorate in 1991. He now teaches German and philosophy at the Kantonsschule am Burggraben. He has published poetry, diaries, essays, anthologies and translations by Paul Bowles, Ira Cohen, Jan Heller Levi, Mohammed Mrabet and others. From 2007 to 2022 he led the literary event series Noisma in the Kult-Bau in St. Gallen together with Gallus Frei, Daniel Fuchs and Clemens Umbricht. Vetsch's Board Game (1986) was staged and printed in Lenzburg in April 2022 by the draftsman and object artist Rolf Winnewisser, demonstrating the enduring relevance of Vetsch's poetry.
Review Quotes:
Vetsch [himself] ... is a kind of relay where the most diverse paths cross ... a translator, literally, from English and French, but also figuratively - a mediator, teacher, critic, editor, organizer, matchmaker.
One could compare him with Long John Silver, the legendary pirate from Stevenson's Treasure Island, to whom he also dedicated a poem, lovable, engaging, seductive, but still a buccaneer through and through; contradictory, uniting, wrapped in misleading cloaks. A smuggler, a trickster, a go-between ... [whose] poems encourage you to keep reading, always reading differently, always navigating further.
- David Signer, Swiss Month