Whatever Befalls: Poems from the Dietenbronn Neurological Clinic

That these texts are at least typographically arranged as poems is due to the fact that my handwriting was illegible for the time being because of a paralysis. There were also visual problems. So any intellectual activity based on reading and writing was temporarily impossible. I was at the mercy of my worries and my impressions of the clinic. Only by staring them in the face could I keep them from becoming obsessions. It was therefore a great relief to me when my writing slowly became legible again and the shadows disappeared from my vision. My first reason for writing poetry was practical. It was important to save texts as concise and compressed as possible in my memory. In addition, there were therapeutic considerations: Rhythms have something evocative, make the chaos of diagnostic shock and contrasting impressions easier to grasp, seal up leaks and also allow a bit of personality development, while an outside organization such as a prison or barracks, makes that possible only with a hundred restrictions.