“Vielmehr Konstruktionen, Scharniere, Winkelzüge, Scherze”: Die junge Lyrik aus Österreich im Spielfeld von Tradition und Innovation

The main aim of the article is to describe new areas of poetic speech in young Austrian poetry, that is, from poets belonging to “Generation Y” or to the first generation of digital natives. The article focuses on poems that are situated among diff erent disciplines (word, music, and image), engage in language experimentation, and use and reflect the technical possibilities delivered by the internet. In what sense can we call this poetry “young” given that “young” does not always mean “new”? Moreover, this paper examines the extent to which poems refer to earlier traditions, especially to those of experimental poetry and language criticism. Given this background, the question arises whether this young poetry can or cannot be approached as a part of so-called litt eratura austriaca. The paper analyzes representative poems by Ann Cott en, Martin Fritz, Sophie Reyer, and Cornelia Travnicek.