Elisabeth Wandeler-Deck explores the vicissitudes of beginnings in her new poetry collection with titles like "Slow Start," "Persistent Start," and "Three Stretched Beginnings in Cairo," ultimately delving into "And the Wonderful Effects of This and Other Conjunctions on the Poem." For me, the author is a seemingly endless language laboratory, where creative curiosity leads to research, deconstruction, dissection, and reassembly. Regularly, Elisabeth Wandeler-Deck releases new linguistic pieces from this wonder kitchen that inspire us to puzzle, discover, and find joy. Reading aloud? For us, it's an adventure; for the author, it's completely normal, writes Beat Brechbühl. Elisabeth Wandeler-Deck's new poetry collection is inspired by and set in motion by Alfred Zimmerlin's composition "Beginnings" (1999). Lyrically, the poet continues here what the composer establishes in his music: short, perhaps etude-like forms.