"Knowledge is still possible." This is not a desperate hope, but an ethos, an attitude, and a commitment. For: "Look: Language balances on a taut rope" – yes, both are true: high and taut! And it is always an adventure to follow Ursula Krechel on her journeys across this rope. Her poems are a dynamic presence. They are awake, wide awake, even where one can only see with closed eyes: into the dark, into the uncertain, into abysses, into layers of personal and collective memory. In diverse forms and a broad range of voices, rhythms, and tones, these poems explore reality without trying to impose a rhyme on it. They are explorations with an open entrance and an open exit, unconventional, full of daring and playfulness. They demonstrate, line by line, the mastery and sovereignty of a great author.