Walter Gross (writer)

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Walter Gross (born October 12, 1924 in Winterthur ; † September 18, 1999 there) was a Swiss poet .

Live and act

Walter Gross was born the son of a factory worker. He grew up in the Töss district of Winterthur . As a young person he was looking for a suitable job; he was a messenger in a bookstore, volunteer in the zoological institute of a university, after his apprenticeship as a bookbinder worker in various bookbinderies and employee of a state university.

In his autobiographical notes, Gross wrote:

“Influences could also be demonstrated in me, I am no exception, sometimes I have admitted them in the dedications, for example with Brecht , with Pavese , Lorca . Most of it is hidden in the meantime: Pound , Kavafis , with the shocking poems about his private life, Pavese, again, whose big theme is the conquest of the land, land he never owned, Elio Vittorini , the Italians in general: Giuseppe Ungaretti , Salvatore Quasimodo , Vasco Pratolini , Pier Paolo Pasolini , Carlo Levi . Of course, it has to do with my origins when I feel connected to ordinary people, show solidarity with them, with them who suffer from the hardship of not being able to articulate themselves or at least insufficiently. "

After trips to Italy and Sicily, which impressed him, the books of poetry Die Taube (1956) and Gedichte (1957) appeared. Gross's poems are featured in important anthologies . In 1964 Gross received the Hugo Jacobi Prize and the Carl Heinrich Ernst Art Prize .

After his second volume of poetry was published in 1964 by Piper Verlag , to which Ingeborg Bachmann had placed him, Werner Gross remained silent poetically until his death. He died alone in 1999 and almost forgotten in a nursing home in Winterthur.

Posthumously, Gross left behind with the extensive volumes of works and letters , edited by Peter Hamm , published in 2005 by Limmat Verlag in Zurich, “a fascinating correspondence: with Johannes Bobrowski , Werner Weber , Carl Jacob Burckhardt , Hans Boesch , Jörg Steiner , Kurt Marti , Rainer Brambach , Cyrus Atabay and many others, who were enthusiastically welcomed by the critics ”. The Swiss literary magazine orte states:

“The letters are of literary quality, they show a great talent for friendship, but they are also a shocking document of Walter Gross’s crises, which ultimately ended in silence.”

Works

Independent publications

  • San Michele a Ripaldi cemetery. Florence, Ematal. Winterthur 1950.
  • The dove, poem. Borgis-Verlag, Sins AG 1956.
  • Messages still in the dust. Poems. Heinrich Ellermann Verlag, Hamburg / Munich 1957.
  • Messages still in the dust. Poems. Vogel, Winterthur 1999. (Reprinted with the permission of the author of the edition by Verlag Heinrich Ellermann, 1957. Published by his friends on the occasion of his 75th birthday on October 12, 1999. Afterword by Serge Ehrensperger.)
  • Reply. Poems. R. Piper Verlag, Munich 1964.
  • Embassies. A poem by Walter Gross. Black hand press. Flaach 1993.

Contributions to anthologies (selection)

  • Walter Höllerer (Ed.): Transit. Mid-century poetry book. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1956.
  • Peter Lehner (Ed.): Ensemble. A Swiss contribution to contemporary poetry. With the participation of Hans Rudolf Hilty and Andri Peer . Benteli, Bern 1958.
  • Wolfgang Weyrauch (ed.): Expeditions. German poetry since 1945. List, Munich 1959.
  • Literature calendar. A cross-section through contemporary literature. Hartfried Voss, Ebenhausen 1959.
  • Hans-Rudolf Hilty, Walter Gross (Ed.): Explain to me, love. Love poems in the German language since 1945. Tschudy, St. Gallen 1959.
  • Horst Bingel (ed.): German poetry. Poems since 1945. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1961.
  • Hans Bender (Ed.): Contrast. German poetry since 1945. Moderner Buch Club, Darmstadt 1961, Hanser, Munich 1962.
  • Hermann Kesten (Ed.): Europe today. Prose and poetry since 1945. An anthology. Kindler, Munich 1963.
  • Hugo Leber (Ed.): Texts. Prose by young Swiss authors. Benziger Verlag, Einsiedeln / Zurich / Cologne 1964.
  • The place where we live. To Johannes Bobrowsi's poems. In: The word. Literary supplement to Du - Atlantis; cultural monthly. Volume 25, H. 2, 1965, pp. 135-136 ( e-periodica.ch ).
  • Kurt Morawietz (Ed.): German division. A poetry reader. With an afterword by Reimar Lenz. Limes, Wiesbaden 1966.
  • Fritz Pratz (Ed.): German poems from 1900 to the present. Fischer library, Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1971.
  • Frank Geerk (Ed.): Poetry from Switzerland. Benziger, Zurich / Cologne 1974.
  • Supporting documents. Poems from German-speaking Switzerland since 1900. Selected by the Zurich Seminar for Literary Criticism with Werner Weber . Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1978.
  • Edgar Marsch (Ed.): Modern German natural poetry. Reclam, Stuttgart 1980.
  • Jörg Hildebrandt (Ed.): I return at dawn. Stories from Switzerland. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1984.
  • Johannes Bobrowski : My favorite poems. A selection of German poetry from Martin Luther to Christoph Meckel. [Ed.]: Eberhard Haufe , Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1985.
  • Klaus-Dieter Schult (ed.): The skeptical landscape. German-language poetry from Switzerland since 1900. Reclam, Leipzig 1988.
  • Egon Ammann , Urs Bugmann (ed.): Reading time. Literature from Switzerland. Ammann, Zurich 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Gander: Walter Gross. The Tössem poet. (No longer available online.) In: toessemer.ch. Social Democratic Party Winterthur-Töss, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 2, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.toessemer.ch
  2. ^ Walter Gross: About myself. Limmat Verlag, accessed on June 2, 2013 .
  3. ↑ For example the two poems Trapani (City you, with a horizon) and Kaleo (Yes, like a shadow). In: Hans Bender: Contrast. German poetry since 1945. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1962, without ISBN.
  4. ^ Editorial for the Walter Gross edition . In: places. The literary magazine of Switzerland . No. 155 . orte Verlag, Übergg ( appenzellerverlag.ch - probably 2007).
personal data
SURNAME Gross, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Winterthur
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1999
Place of death Winterthur