"This should have been the poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann’s debut: this collection of poems, Performance of my Hands, was written in 1963 but rejected by the publisher at the time. There was interest in his prose, but not his poems, which differed from everything which was regarded as verse back then. The Earth is a Coffin, Rondeau for Maleen, The Great Festivals of Luis Buñuel, The Bombs in My Head, but also Their Lovely Knees - the titles speak for themselves. The 23 year old’s verses already display the unmistakeable Brinkmann sound, although perhaps a little more raw, eloquent, personal and expressive than the author’s subsequently published texts.
What Georg Klein wrote about Rolf Dieter Brinkmann in the Süddeutsche Zeitung three years ago would equally apply to these newly discovered poems: Passages almost childlike in their descriptive quality are interspersed with sections in which the full radicalism of his perceptive reflection and noticeably obstinate, almost lurking potential illuminate his poetic capabilities. ""A little literary sensation"" Radio Bremen"
