the uttered sounds are, in fact, correspondent to the eight letters of the name (kurt) waldheim, president of austria between 1986 and 1992, former secretary-general of the united nations and subject of the international controversy “waldheim affair”, in which he was accused of having hidden the truth about his former experience as a wehrmacht intelligence officer during world war 2. the whole poem is made of permutations of these eight letters and the name of the piece, “lahmwedi”, is, in fact, an anagram of “waldheim”; moreover, this title consists of two words, “lahm”, which means “weak” in german, and “wedi”, which has the approximate sense of “worthless” in austrian. the author’s attitude of disappointment and disregard is thus obvious both in content (the ironical allusions to the “weak and worthless” character of the diplomat) and in form (the handicapped voice uttering the “w w-w / w w-w” at the end of the poem).
(denisa mirena piscu, literary theorist, on ide's poem "lahmwedi", from the album "30 rufe" ("30 callings"), master thesis on "sound poetry - three sound poets trying to escape the abusive domination of word: henri chopin, sainkho namtchylak, christian ide hintze", written in english language. university of bucarest, rumania, february 2009
the uttered sounds are, in fact, correspondent to the eight letters of the name (kurt) waldheim, president of austria between 1986 and 1992, former secretary-general of the united nations and subject of the international controversy “waldheim affair”, in which he was accused of having hidden the truth about his former experience as a wehrmacht intelligence officer during world war 2. the whole poem is made of permutations of these eight letters and the name of the piece, “lahmwedi”, is, in fact, an anagram of “waldheim”; moreover, this title consists of two words, “lahm”, which means “weak” in german, and “wedi”, which has the approximate sense of “worthless” in austrian. the author’s attitude of disappointment and disregard is thus obvious both in content (the ironical allusions to the “weak and worthless” character of the diplomat) and in form (the handicapped voice uttering the “w w-w / w w-w” at the end of the poem).
(denisa mirena piscu, literary theorist, on ide's poem "lahmwedi", from the album "30 rufe" ("30 callings"), master thesis on "sound poetry - three sound poets trying to escape the abusive domination of word: henri chopin, sainkho namtchylak, christian ide hintze", written in english language. university of bucarest, rumania, february 2009