Poetry of Cities of LiteratureMiriam Tag

We continue our poetic journey through Heidelberg Literaturstadt Heidelberg, and today we are delighted to introduce the poet Miriam Tag.
We invite you to listen to her poem performed by the author and explore its English translation.

Miriam Tag is a poet, sociologist and philosopher (Ph.D.), working at the intersection of literature, arts and environmental humanities. Heidelberg Authors' Prize 2019, Merck Fellow of Textwerkstatt Darmstadt/Center for New Literature 2021, nominated for the Munich Poetry Prize 2021, Dresden Poetry Prize 2021, Meran Poetry Prize 2024, Irseer Pegasus 2025. Multiple participation in exhibitions (Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Museum Haus Sinclair). Artistic director of the Planetary Art Festival. Her first of poetry-collection liebestier was published in 2023 by Aphaia, Munich. Further publications: ‘Who experiments’ (in Nature Writing, Art and Nature Foundation 2023), ‘neues gras’ (in Poems and Prose for the Exhibition Parliament of Plants II, Liechtenstein Art Museum 2023), ‘Gaia-Glottie’ (in Apocalypse & Apathy, transcript 2025), ‘Intimate Attraction’ (in Implications: Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities, Bloomsbury 2025), ‘Fiery’ (in Climatic Subjects, transcript 2025).

Let’s listen to Miriam’s poem in the original language:


twelve doves (zwölf tauben)
one like a stone
in my heart-hand
two take flight
with no direction
three form a balance
against forgetting –
one resists
one surrenders
one remembers
four rise into all winds
in search for protection
one at their center
stretches the crosshairs
the last one recounts:
in your apartment
at the Італійська
did you carry in that spring
a bird, nearly there
where just weeks before
the small beating
had suddenly stopped
tiny wings
fold themselves in and out
close to the heart –
no thirteenth spell, no curse –
only the memory of something small
significant
in a vast forgetting


The project was created by the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature and being implemented with funds raised by Reykjavik City of Literature Reykjavík Bókmenntaborg UNESCO as part of the readings initiated by Milano City of Literature “Not Just Words” (Reading for Odesa) on February 24, 2024.