Celebrate Mascha Kaléko's Life & Works at Ibbenbüren Event on Oct 16
Mark your calendars for October 16, 2025, as Ibbenbüren hosts a literary-musical event titled 'My Life Was a Tightrope Walk', celebrating the life and work of Mascha Kaléko on the 50th anniversary of her death. The event promises a biographical lyrical reading by Ingeborg Grau, accompanied by Kai Dorenkamp on piano and Matthias Lahrmann on clarinet and saxophone.
Mascha Kaléko, born in Galicia in 1907, was a prominent poet who captivated the Berlin literary scene in the late 1920s and early 1930s with her pointed, rhythmically clear, yet deeply felt verses. Her poems reflected the life feeling of an entire generation, full of wit and irony, but also permeated by melancholy. Kaléko's later works are marked by longing, alienation, and uprooting, with themes such as the loss of homeland and the experience of exile giving her work a timeless relevance.
The event is a remembrance of Kaléko's work and an appeal for her poetry to continue living on as a voice for the simple, the honest, and the human. Ingeborg Grau will paint a sympathetic portrait of Kaléko, an artist whose voice must not be silenced. Kaléko's career was abruptly ended by the rising nationalism in Germany, leading to her emigration to the USA and later Jerusalem in 1938.
Tickets for the event are available for 15 euros in advance at Ibbenbüren City Library or by phone at 05451 / 9314200. Join us to celebrate the life and work of Mascha Kaléko, a poet whose words continue to resonate and inspire.
