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Ann Cotten

{{short description|American-born Austrian writer|bot=PearBOT 5}}

File:Ann Cotten - Buch Wien 2024 (b).JPG

File:Ann Cotten.jpg

Ann Cotten (born 1982 in Ames, Iowa) is an American-born Austrian writer. She generally writes (and speaks) in Standard Austrian German and introduces linguistic innovations.

Life and work

At the age of five, Cotten moved to Vienna with her parents, who are both biochemists who worked in Vienna.[http://www.zintzen.org/autoren-authors-auteurs/ann-cotten Ann Cotten biography] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090928102948/http://www.zintzen.org/autoren-authors-auteurs/ann-cotten |date=September 28, 2009 }} zintzen.org

She finished university there in 2006 with a work about concrete poetry. At the same time she first emerged as a poet at poetry slams.

In 2007 Cotten, whose work has been published in anthologies and poetry journals, found considerable success as a writer with her first book, Fremdwörterbuchsonnette, which was published at Suhrkamp. Other books with Suhrkamp are Florida-Räume in 2001, Der schaudernde Fächer in 2013, Verbannt! Versepos in 2016.{{Cite web|url=https://www.suhrkamp.de/person/ann-cotten-p-5973|title=Ann Cotten auf suhrkamp.de|website=Suhrkamp Verlag|accessdate=1 December 2021}}

Some of Cotten's poems have been translated into English and published in journals like burning deck (USA). In 2010 she collaborated with visual artist Kerstin Cmelka in a book called I, Coleoptile{{Cite web|url=http://www.brokendimanche.eu/coleoptile_cmelka_cotten|title=Coleoptile Book Page|accessdate=1 December 2021}} containing original English poetry and film stills, published by Broken Dimanche Press. The book Lather in Heaven,{{Cite web|url=https://www.brokendimanche.eu/shop-1/lather-in-heaven|title=Lather In Heaven|website=Büro BDP|accessdate=1 December 2021}} published by the same editor in 2016, assembles her work in English up to date, as well as some selected translations from the German.

In 2016, Jikiketsugaki. Tsurezuregusa,{{Cite web|url=https://www.engstler-verlag.de/produkt/jikiketsugaki/|title=JIKIKETSUGAKI|accessdate=1 December 2021}} was published by the Peter Engstler Verlag. It contains a selection of Cotten's poems and prose, inspired by Japan, Japanese literature, and the semiotics of the Japanese language. Fast Dumm, Essays von on the road{{Cite web|url=https://www.starfruit-publications.de/buecher/ann-cotten/|title=Ann Cotten|website=www.starfruit-publications.de|accessdate=1 December 2021}} is a reflecting book about visiting the United States, including poems, essays, photographies and her own translations of poems of other poets, like Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, Katia Sophia Ditzler. The book was published by Starfruit Publications in 2017.

Since 2020, Cotten has started work on a PhD project at Peter Szondi Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft at Freie Universität Berlin,{{Cite web|url=https://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we03/index.html/|title=Peter Szondi Institut|accessdate=23 July 2023}} with the current working title "Misuseability. Aesthetic Recycling and Deviance as a Feedback Monitoring System (or How To Like Poems and Essays)".{{Cite web|url=https://www.ifk.ac.at/fellows-detail-en/ann-cotten.html/|title=Ann Cotten IFK|accessdate=23 July 2023}}

Since 2023, Cotten has taken on co-editorship (with Sandro Huber{{Cite web|url=https://www.lyrikline.org/de/autoren/sandro-huber/|title=Sandro Huber|accessdate=23 July 2023}} and Gerd Sulzenbacher) of the bi-yearly journal "Triëdere" for theory and literature.{{Cite web|url=https://sonderzahl.at/reihe/triedere/|title=Triëdere|accessdate=23 July 2023}}

Cotten lives in Vienna and in Berlin. She relinquished US citizenship in 2005.{{Cite web|date=2005-02-02|title=Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G|url=https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2005/02/02/05-1951/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate-as-required-by-section-6039g|access-date=2020-07-24|website=Federal Register}}

Non-gendered language use

Ann Cotten sometimes uses an innovative form of non-discriminatory language use in Austrian German. She employs what she calls "Polnisches Gendering" with the letters for all gender forms in randomized order selected for ease of pronunciation. Besides ensuring a politically incorrect atmosphere, Cotten's "Polish Gendering", also roughly references Polish Notation.{{Cite web |last=Popp |first=Wolfgang |date=2024 |title=Interview with Ann Cotten [in Austrian German] |url=https://oe1.orf.at/player/20240825/766809/1724594460000 |access-date=2024-09-03 |website=oe1.orf.at}}Polish notation{{Circular reference|date=February 2025}} This yields for "Lehrer" 'male teacher' and "Lehrerin" 'female teacher' the gender-neutral "Lehrerni". It is only in the plural form "Lehrernnnie" that there can be found a superficial reminiscence of Polish "Kochanie". Cotten uses these novel forms effortlessly in speech and in writing, avoiding the verbal glottal stop in both "Genderstern", e.g. "Lehrer*in", and the now (2024) more dominant non-gender form of the colon, e.g. "Lehrer:in". Cotten maintains a pluralist and fluid stance in questions of gender and language and also often uses "Entgendern nach Phettberg", when appropriate, which neuters everybody ("Das Lehry", "das Auty").

Publications

  • Fremdwörterbuchsonette, poetry, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 2007, {{ISBN|978-3-518-12497-0}}.
  • Nach der Welt. Die Listen der konkreten Poesie und ihre Folgen., essay, Klever, Vienna 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-902665-01-0}}.
  • Glossarattrappen, prose, AusnahmeVerlag, Hamburg 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-940992-09-3}}.
  • Das Pferd. SuKuLTuR, Berlin 2009 (Schöner Lesen Nr. 84), {{ISBN|978-3-941592-03-2}}.
  • Florida-Räume, poetry, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 2010, {{ISBN|978-3-518-42132-1}}.
  • Helm aus Phlox. Zur Theorie des schlechtesten Werkzeugs. Merve Verlag, Berlin 2011, {{ISBN|978-3-88396-292-4}}.
  • Pflock in der Landschaft, Schock Edition (1), EdK/Distillery, Berlin 2011, {{ISBN|978-3-941330-28-3}}.
  • I, Coleoptile, poetry (English), Broken Dimanche Press, Berlin-Oslo-Dublin 2010, {{ISBN|978-3-00-032627-1}}.
  • Jikiketsugaki. Tsurezuregusa. Verlag Peter Engstler, Ostheim/Rhön 2016, {{ISBN|978-3-941126-91-6}}.
  • Lather in Heaven! (English), Broken Dimanche Press, Berlin-Oslo-Dublin 2016, {{ISBN|978-3-943196-40-5}}.
  • Fast Dumm, Essays von on the road, Starfruit Publications, Fürth 2017, {{ISBN|978-3-922895-32-9}}.
  • Lyophilia, Erzählungen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2019, {{ISBN|978-3-518-42869-6}}.
  • Die Anleitungen der Vorfahren, Edition Suhrkamp, 2023, ISBN 978-3-518-02981-7.

Honors

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • [http://www.suhrkamp.de/autoren/autor.cfm?id=5973 Ann Cotten on the website of Suhrkamp-publishing (german)]
  • [http://www.brokendimanche.eu/latherinheaven/ Website for "Lather in Heaven"]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20110812213839/http://brokendimanche.eu/i-coleoptile/review-essay/ Review of I,Coleoptile in English from De Reactor]
  • [http://www.engstler-verlag.de/book-author/ann-cotten/ Ann Cotten on the website of Peter Engstler Verlag (german)]
  • [http://www.starfruit-publications.de/buecher/ann-cotten/ Ann Cotten on the website of starfruit publications (german)]
  • [http://cordite.org.au/interviews/balius-cotten/ Click: A Conversation with Ann Cotten (Interview in English and German), Cordite Poetry Review]
  • [http://www.zeit.de/2010/38/L-B-Cotten Article on the book Florida-Räume] in the German weekly news magazine Die Zeit
  • [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-34-ann-cotten/ Interview in English with Ann Cotten at 3AM Magazine]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20090925080532/http://jacketmagazine.com/37/r-dichten-rb-hales.shtml review of the English translation]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20110723083343/http://germany.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=18019&x=1 Entry at Poetry International Web]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotten, Ann}}

Category:American poets in German

Category:American women poets

Category:American writers in German

Category:German-language poets

Category:American emigrants to Austria

Category:Artists from Ames, Iowa

Category:Living people

Category:1982 births

Category:German women poets

Category:Austrian women poets

Category:21st-century American poets

Category:21st-century American women writers