Gerhard Kerfin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gerhard Kerfin (born April 1, 1935 in Nauen , † on April 6, 2016 in Berlin ; real name is Gerhard Bielicke ) was a German poet and writer from the circle of Berlin painter-poets (Kreuzberger Bohème).

Live and act

Gerhard Kerfin was born in Nauen (Osthavelland district) in 1935. He was an illegitimate child. His mother later took him to a children's home, where he spent three years until he escaped. From 1953 he studied at the workers and farmers faculty in Rostock , but dropped out prematurely and moved to West Berlin in 1956. After training as a fitter, he passed his Abitur in West Berlin in 1958. Until 1963 he then worked as an inspector for the Berlin customs administration. He had already started writing poetry in Rostock.

Kerfin almost inevitably found his way to the Leierkasten and Die Kleine Weltlaterne pubs , where the artists of the Kreuzberg neighborhood met around 1960 . He broke off his civil service career. As a stage name he chose the family name of his grandmother.

The organ barrel actually served as a “start and end station for painters”, optionally as a “reservoir for bums, drunkards, artists of all kinds”, as the founder, artist boss and main operator Kurt Mühlenhaupt himself described it in a poster draft. Kerfin also met the circle around Karl-Heinz Herwig, Hellmut Kotschenreuther and many others here.

Kerfin first became a factotum and assistant in Kurt Mühlenhaupt's second-hand shop and also a poet. Mühlenhaupt and Gerhard became friends. The friendship lasted lifelong. In 1965 the Berliner Morgenpost wrote about Kerfin: “His love belongs to poetry”, and a little further down: “A West German publisher now wants to publish Gerhard Kerfin’s works in larger editions.” That never happened. Kerfin's first two books were still handwritten, but then he met Hugo Hoffmann , who over the years published ten of his books in his studio hand press. Kerfin helped with bookbinding and sales.

He kept commuting between wage work and poetry, worked as a messenger, caretaker, in a youth home, in a hat-making shop, as a gardener and as a guard. He rarely left Berlin, but made trips to Bali.

He liked to read his verses out loud. Once he was forbidden to recite by the police at the Kreuzberger Bildermarkt because it violated the market regulations.

When he co-founded the Kreuzberger Künstler Kreis eV in 1975 , he became its deputy chairman, looked after the club's gallery and was responsible for media work. He read twice from his poems on television and read on the broadcaster Free Berlin.

In 1981 he received the Schwalenberg grant, which was to remain his only one.

A year after his wife's death in 1991, Kerfin jumped out of the window on the second floor of an old building, also because he was afraid that he would no longer be able to hold his apartment. He spent nine months in hospital and in a wheelchair, then six months in psychiatry.

Kerfin was an established local in the Kreuzberg neighborhood in the 2000s. He led an inner double existence for life. At 16, unusual for an apprentice, he read Hegel. Later he felt himself to be a craftsman and a poet. This resulted in a constant inner balancing act that led him to his unmistakable form of expression: quick and precise language because he often lacked the time to write leisurely.

police
report
calls them
trampers

daily
on the

go looking for bread in the street
in garbage cans

a well-groomed dog
is going for a
walk

(Excerpt from police report , 1982.)

Over the decades he has given almost four hundred readings and published 17 books, with editions of just 300 to 500 copies. Most of the copies have not been sold, but given away. They are numbered, signed and provided with high-quality wood and linocuts.

Works (selection)

  • from hollywood to behind tegel . (Illustrations: Artur Märchen ). Self-published by Gerhard Kerfin, Berlin 1965
  • Modern city . (Illustrations: Artur Märchen ). Self-published by Gerhard Kerfin, Berlin 1966
  • Whom the police hour strikes . (Illustrations: Artur Märchen ), self-published by Monte Cruce, 1968
  • General house rules to prevent house and hallway damage . (Illustrations: Willi Mühlenhaupt ), self-published by Monte Cruce 1969
  • Spoken in the pants bib . (Illustrations: Kurt Mühlenhaupt), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1970
  • The miraculous rescue of the city F . (Illustrations: Wolfgang Simon ), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin: 1972
  • Heckling. Poems and prose . (Illustrations: Wolfgang Simon), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1975
  • But hope is low . Poems and little prose (illustrations: Walter Koschwitz), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1976
  • When human language sounds suspicious . (Illustrations: Kurt Mühlenhaupt), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1978
  • Poems that have names . (Illustrations: Karl-Heinz Grage), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1979
  • Schwalenberg: small chronicle in poems . (Illustrations: Manfred Zeh), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1982
  • Those who love quail fear their tongue eater . (Illustrations: Rudi Lesser ). Atelier hand press, Berlin 1982
  • We know hell within a cube throw . (Illustrations: Günter Bruno Fuchs ), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 1988
  • When I was walking with dinosaurs . (Illustrations: Kurt Mühlenhaupt). Atelier hand press, Berlin 1993
  • In the twilight of old avenues . Monte Cruce MCMXCVI. Poems. (Illustrations: Ursula Braune). Edition Druckatelier Schwarze Kunst, Berlin 1996
  • Indonesian diary . Poems from a trip to Bali. Monte cruce MCMCXCVIII. (Illustrations: Ursula Braune and Sylvie Gerschmer), Gerike printing works, Berlin 1998
  • drive search. graphic and lyrical shorthands . (together with Hans Kühne), Verlag Michael Kühne, Burg 2002
  • Insatiable thirst . Monte cruce MMIV. Poems. (Illustrations: Michael Kühne and Michael Frey), Atelier-Handpresse, Berlin 2004
  • Memories and moments. A biography (1945–1995) . Poems and stories, Gerike printing works, Berlin 2006

literature

  • Joseph Kürschner, Heinrich Hart (Ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar , Vol. 67, De Gruyter 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023278-3 .
  • Wilhelm Kosch, Lutz Hagestedt (Hrsg.): German Literature Lexicon. The 20th century. Biographical-bibliographical manual , Vol. 27, de Gruyter 2016 ISBN 978-3-11-045445-1 .
  • Horst Rudolph, Robert Wolfgang Schnell , Heinz Ohff et al .: Handpicked. The tradition of making books in small Berlin publishers and workshops . Ed .: Kunstamt Kreuzberg. Argon, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-87024-160-8 .
  • Hanno Hochmuth: Neighborhood history. Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg in divided Berlin . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8353-3092-4 ( limited preview in Google book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gregor Eisenhauer : fate jokes. Obituary for Gerhard Kerfin. In: Der Tagesspiegel. June 16, 2016, accessed January 23, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c Gabriele Bärtels , Kreuzberger Chronik: Kreuzberger Chronik: Gerhard Kerfin, poet - you are reading the original! from Berlin-Kreuzberg. Retrieved January 23, 2018 .
  3. ^ Kulturamt Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg: Laudation by District Councilor Jana Borkamp on the 80th birthday of Gerhard Kerfin. ( Memento from March 8, 2018 in the web archive archive.today )
  4. ↑ Nina Apin: Stories from Kreuzberg: The story fisherman . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 3, 2008, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed January 28, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Elvira Surrmann: Gerhard Kerfin . In: Elvira Surrmann (ed.): Kreuzberg miniatures, pictures and stories from Kreuzberg. "Artist" , issue 6, 2nd edition 2012
  6. ↑ Whoever loves quail fears their tongue eater . (Illustrations: Rudi Lesser ). Atelier hand press, Berlin 1982
  7. ↑ Joseph Kürschner, Heinrich Hart (ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar , Vol. 67, De Gruyter 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023278-3
personal data
SURNAME Kerfin, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bielicke, Gerhard (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Nauen
DATE OF DEATH before June 16, 2016
Place of death Berlin