„who is the octopus – the dreamer or the dream“?

Certainly many of you had some exciting days during the Football World Cup in South Africa. We’ve had a good time here in Berlin at the lyrikline.org headquarter (at least until the semi finals) with nearly all colleagues in our institution (Literaturwerkstatt Berlin) swept by football fever. In the end, the lyrikline.org office was defeated in the in-house betting pool by the open mike department in a very close race.

The headline of this article is quoted from a nice poem found on lyrikline which seems to have been made for Paul, the octopus oracle that was so (tragically) right this year. Here is the octopus poem by Joanne Burns from Australia.

Thanks to everyone for following our poetic match series on Twitter and Facebook, that presented two poems from the competing countries every day (except for a short holiday break). For the archives, here is the complete list of the poetic encounters:

June 11
South Africa vs Mexico
Ike Mboneni Muila / José Emilio Pacheco

Uruguay vs France
Eduardo Milán / Georges-Emmanuel Clancier

June 12
South Korea vs Greece
HUH Su Kyung / Kostas Koutsourelis

June 13
Germany vs Australia
Jan Wagner / Antigone Kefala

June 14
The Netherlands vs Denmark
Tsead Bruinja / Morten Søndergaard

June 15
Ivory Coast vs Portugal
Tanella Boni / Gonçalo M. Tavares

June 16
Spain vs Switzerland
Manuel Forcano / Donata Berra

June 17
Argentina vs South Korea
Juan Gelman / CHONG Hyonjong

June 18
Germany vs Serbia
Marcel Beyer / Matija Bećković

June 19
The Netherlands vs Japan
Serge van Duijnhoven / Kazuko Shiraishi

June 20
Brazil vs Ivory Coast
Ricardo Domeneck / Tanella Boni

June 21
Chile vs Switzerland
Raúl Zurita / Leo Tuor

June 22
France vs South Africa
Jacques-Frédéric Temple / Antjie Krog

July 2
The Netherlands vs Brazil
Erik Lindner / Arnaldo Antunes

July 3
Argentina vs Germany
Daniel Samoilovich / Ursula Krechel

July 6
Uruguay vs The Netherlands
Eduardo Milán / Jan-Willem Anker

July 7
Germany vs Spain
Nico Bleutge / Perejaume

July 10
Uruguay vs Germany
Eduardo Milán / Lutz Seiler

July 11
The Netherlands vs Spain
Arjen Duinker / Claudio Rodríguez

Finally, congratulations to Spain!