Veränderte Landschaft: East German Nature Poetry Since Reunification

This paper asks what has become of the distinctive tradition of GDR landscape poetry since reunification. It examines the representation of the physical changes which have come over the East German landscape in the work of older and younger poets, and considers the extent to which they provide objective correlatives for the socio-political and cultural changes experienced since 1989. The role played by landscape poetry in identity construction is also discussed. The past, travel and Heimat are themes associated with a new critical regionalism in the new Länder founded on personal and collective, local and East German experience. The principal focus is on the poems of Volker Braun, Heinz Czechowski, Wulf Kirsten and Thomas Rosenlöcher, but reference is also made to texts by younger contemporaries such as Kurt Drawert, Durs Grünbein and Michael Wüstefeld.