Friederike Mayröcker

Friederike Mayröcker (born 20 December 1924 in Vienna) is an Austrian poet.

From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.

She started writing as a 15-year-old. In 1946 she published her first works in the journal Plan.

Friederike Mayröcker is recognized as one of the most important contemporary Austrian poets. She also had success with radio plays. Four of them she wrote together with Ernst Jandl, with whom she lived together from 1954 until his death in 2000.

Mayröcker describes her working process as follows:

"I live in pictures. I see everything in pictures, my complete past, memories are pictures. I transform pictures into language by climbing into the picture. I walk into it until it becomes language."

• Gesammelte Prosa 1949-2001 (collected prose) ed. by Klaus Reichert, 5 volumes, Frankfurt/Main 2001
• Magische Blätter I-V (magic pages I-V), Frankfurt/Main 2001
• Requiem für Ernst Jandl (requiem for Ernst Jandl), Frankfurt/Main 2001
• Mein Arbeitstirol - Gedichte 1996-2001 (my working Tyrol – poems), Frankfurt/Main 2003
• Die kommunizierenden Gefäße (the communicating vessels) Frankfurt/Main 2003
• Sinclair Sofokles der Baby-Saurier (Sinclair Sofokles the baby-dinosaur) with coloured illustrations by Angelika Kaufmann, St. Pölten 2004
• Gesammelte Gedichte 1939-2003 (collected poems) ed. by Marcel Beyer, Frankfurt/Main 2005
• Und ich schüttelte einen Liebling (and I shook a darling), Frankfurt/Main 2005

Radio plays

• Die Umarmung, nach Picasso (the embracement, after Picasso)
• Repetitionen, nach Max Ernst (repetitions, after Max Ernst)
• Schubertnotizen oder das unbestechliche Muster der Ekstase (Schubert-memos or the incorrupt model of ecstasy)
• Arie auf tönernen Füßen (aria on feet of clay)
• Das zu Sehende, das zu Hörende (the to be seen, the to be heard) (awarded with the ORF radio play prize)
• Die Kantate oder, Gottes Augenstern bist Du, (the cantata or, gods eye-star you are) music by Wolfgang von Schweinitz (2003)

with Ernst Jandl:

• Der Gigant (the giant)
• Gemeinsame Kindheit (childhood together)
• Five Man Humanity / Fünf Mann Menschen
• Spaltungen (partitions)

Libretto

• Stretta, Music by Wolfram Wagner. World premiere at Sirene Opera, Vienna 2004

• 1963: Theodor Körner Prize
• 1969: Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for Five People (with Ernst Jandl)
• 1975: Austrian Prize for Literature
• 1976: City of Vienna Prize for Literature
• 1977: Georg Trakl Prize for Poetry
• 1981: Anton Wildgans Prize
• 1982: Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature
• 1982: Roswitha Prize
• 1985: Literature of Southwest Radio Baden-Baden
• 1985: Gold Medal of the capital Vienna
• 1987: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
• 1989: Hans-Erich-Nossack-Preis
• 1993: Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis of Bad Homburg
• 1994: Manuscripts Award
• 1995: Juror for the award of the Erich Fried Prize to Elke Erb
• 1996: Else Lasker-Schüler Poetry Prize
• 1996: Grand Literature Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts
• 1997: America Award
• 1997: Droste-Preis (Meersburg)
• 1997: ORF Hörspielpreis
• 2000: Christian-Wagner-Preis
• 2001: Karl Sczuka Prize for the radio play The envelope of the birds
• 2001: Georg Büchner Prize
• 2001: Honorary doctorate, University of Bielefeld
• 2004: Honorary Ring of the Vienna
• 2006: Ján Smrek Prize (Bratislava, Slovakia)
• 2008: Radio Drama Critics Award of the ORF for Gardens, beaks, a miracle, a monologue, a radio play
• 2009: Hermann-Lenz-Preis for poem Scardanelli
• 2010: Peter-Huchel-Preis for This jacket (namely) the griffin
• 2010: Horst-Bienek-Preis für Lyrik of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts
• 2011: Bremen Literature Prize for I am in the institution. Fusznoten an unwritten work
• 2016: Österreichischer Buchpreis