Meckel, Christoph (Berlin, 1935- ), studied graphic art at the Academies of Art in Freiburg and Munich from 1954 to 1956, when his first volume of poetry, Tarnkappe, appeared with four graphic drawings; it was the beginning of his prolific production as an artist and writer of poetry and fiction, some of which appeared with illustrations. Much of his work derives from the tension he creates between the world as it is and the world of his remarkably resourceful imagination, concisely exemplified in the story Die Geschichte der Geschichten (1966). Noted for his playful but precise graphic style, he tends to focus on figures from the fringe of society through whom he expresses his disillusionment with post-war (West) Germany, notably the socially divisive effects of the economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) which appears to have erased the lessons of the past. This is first implied in his deeply ironic Manifest der Toten (1960, revised 1971). Following his collection of prose Im Land der Umbramauten (1961), he wrote his story Tullipan (1965), in which a writer tells of his life with Tullipan, a creation of his dream fantasies, who one day turns up in his home, but leaves it when the writer reproaches him about exploits in the community which brand him an outsider. Saddened by his loss, the writer now realizes that he should not have judged Tullipan by the dubious standards of those who have tormented him for being different; he should have encouraged him not to lose faith in himself or in human nature, and to remain tolerant and kind towards others. In his novel Bockshorn (1973, filmed 1984), two boys, Sauly, aged 10, and Mick, almost 14, who are without homes and family ties, spend their days roaming around the city of Baan, street-wise and experienced in evading the police, until a drunken salesman, Landolfi, plays a cruel trick on Sauly by telling him that he has sold his guardian angel. Bereft of his sense of security, the naïve boy insists on recovering the supposed angel on whom his trust in life depends. When the two young tramps eventually trace and encounter Landolfi, he turns out to be heartless, proffering no word of comfort to the despairing boy who, becoming aggressive, is knocked unconscious and dies. In a surrealistic epilogue, Mick restores his companion to life, assuring him that his angel has returned. Written with extraordinary empathy, the novel is not Meckel's only prose work concerned with the vulnerability and loneliness of young outsiders in an alienated society. The volume Ein roter Faden (1983) contains his collected stories. Other prose includes a grotesque and tender fantasy on love, Der wahre Muftoni (1982), the story Licht (1978), tributes to J. Bobrowski, Erinnerungen an Johannes Bobrowski (1978, ext. 1989), and to the Russian poet Evgeny Baratynski (1800-44), Nachricht für Baratynski (1981), a critical study of the author's father, Suchbild. Über meinen Vater (1980), Bericht zur Entstehung einer Weltkomödie (1985), the story Plunder (1986), and the novel Die Messingstadt (1991).
In his poem ‘Rede vom Gedicht’ from the collection Wen es angeht (1974), Meckel states that ‘poetry is the place of the fatally wounded truth’ (‘der zu Tode verwundeten Wahrheit’); initially influenced by expressionist anti-war poetry and Brecht, as in his ‘Lied zur Pauke’, contained in the collection Wildnisse (1962), he has described his poetry as a ‘chronicle of suffering’. Other collections include Die Dummheit liefert uns ans Messer. Zeitgespräch in zehn Sonetten (1967, ext. 1983), written in collaboration with Volker von Törne (1934-80), the trilogy Komödie der Hölle, comprising Säure (1979), Souterrain (1984), and Anzahlung auf ein Glas Wasser (1987), Das Buch Jubal (1987) and its second part, Das Buch Shiralee (1989), and Pferdefuß (1988). Hundert Gedichte, a selection by H. Weinrich, appeared in 1988 Von den Luftgeschäften der Poesie (1989) consists of his lectures delivered at Frankfurt University (Gastdozentur) in 1988. His prizes include the Rilke Prize (1981), the Ernst Meister Prize (1982), and Salzburg's Trakl Prize (1988). Zeichnungen und Graphik (1987) is a catalogue of his extensive artistic production; Anabasis. 88 reproduzierte Radierungen (1982, with a preface by the artist) the first of five cycles of Meckel's Weltkomödie, an arrangement of drawings, etchings, and woodcuts, amounting to hundreds of items created since 1960.
