Tom Sawyer told me of this project, this writing competition in Erfurt – and I thought to myself: lyrical faith, what has that to do with me? My last poem lies more than forty years behind me – and my faith I had cast off fifty years ago. And yet: something insisted. Something lingered. And I began to wonder. Do I truly not believe? In nothing at all? What remains of faith beyond the church, beyond the confines of any institutionalised religion? A surprising abundance, I found to my wonder. And so, I began to write…

Marlen Wagner