SOURCE: Terras, Rita. Review of Luftspringerin, by Sarah Kirsch. World Literature Today 72, no. 2 (spring 1998): 368.

In the following review, Terras praises Kirsch's use of image and language in her prose and poetry collection Luftspringerin.

The present volume of Sarah Kirsch's verse and prose [Luftspringerin,] contains pieces from eight previous collections dating from 1982 to 1996. The title poem, “Luftspringerin” (1989), is appropriate, as it presents the poet's art in quintessence: the poet identifies with Lot's wife (perhaps following the example of Anna Akhmatova), looking back at her life, “having loved something that drove her almost to the edge of the world,” but ending in disappointment and “fear of always the same soup.” Thus, the poet leaves the title of “eine Art Engel die Luftspringerin” to the Russian space dog Laika, herself resigned to “fill her contingent of paper with ink.”

The prose piece “Wie kommt Literatur zustande?” describes Kirsch's poetics as impressionist...