The new book of stories and poems by Ute Wegmann with pictures by Thomas Müller is recommended for everyone who wants to laugh and giggle together. Even the cover, with its bright colors and a little girl hurrying cheerfully and purposefully through the picture, followed by the curious looks of yellow apple faces, puts you in a good mood and makes you curious about the “80 shortest stories and poems” that the publisher is announcing.
In an afterword, Ute Wegmann reveals how many of her poems were created. Once a year she invites friends and neighbors over and asks them for a word on a given topic. “I write a poem or a story every day.” The fact that she has a lot of fun is shown, for example, in the poem: “muddy:” Quitsch nonsense/through the mud/through the puddle/that it splashes/up to your stomach/high up/is really nice/everyone can see/you have to stop dare/ fuck that stuff up.”
Or, for example, “Mustard”: “You are for me/the optimal line/you are the sharpness for the slack/with your color of the giraffe/you stand out/are spice, are bliss/I know it/if you take too much /it’s burning/you can be a little heap/even if you’re heaped up like that/then I can dip/dunk the boiled sausage in you without hesitation.
Thomas Müller’s colorful pictures, with childlike heroes whose lively facial expressions and expressive body language make the illustrator unmistakable, go very well with Ute Wegmann’s funny poems and little stories about animals, about the seasons, ice cream and outdoor swimming pools, football, flip-flops, sunflowers or hay queens. The creative joy that Ute Wegmann so obviously had in writing and playing with language and Thomas Müller in illustrating is transferred to the readers. And when the listening children laugh out loud, join in the conversation and find their own rhymes, or, as suggested by Thomas Müller, paint new pictures for the poems, then the world looks cheerful again.
“A little animal
on all fours
I lay in the grass
and saw it.
(from 6 years and for reading)
Ute Wegmann: Sometimes you are everywhere – stories & poems. With pictures by Thomas Müller. Dtv series Hanser, 2022. 160 pages, 16 euros.