the folded clock - Gerhard Rühm

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the folded clock

by
Gerhard Rühm

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	the folded clock
Author:	Gerhard Rühm
Genre:	Poetry
Written:	2023 (Eng. 2025)
Length:	173 pages
Original in:	German
Availability:	the folded clock - US
	the folded clock - UK
	the folded clock - Canada
	die gefaltete uhr - Deutschland

	directly from: Twisted Spoon Press

100 number poems
German title: die gefaltete uhr
Translated by Alexander Booth

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Our Assessment:

B+ : creative takes and good variety

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
Die Presse	.	17/5/2024	Alexandra Millner

From the Reviews:

"Rühm findet in seiner formal-poetischen Auseinandersetzung mit Zahlen zu einer beeindruckenden Variationsbreite, die von der spielerischen Kombinationsfreude und Humorbereitschaft des 94-jährigen (Sprach-)Künstlers zeugt." - Alexandra Millner, Die Presse

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

The pieces in the folded clock are indeed 'number poems', with numbers figuring prominently, both in digit- (0-9) and word-form. The opening poem -- 'a recounting' -- comes with a lengthy "note on recitation", as Rühm also makes clear that many of these poems are as much to-be-spoken as written works; some are even musically scored, such as '6 x 6 number poem with piano' (presented as: 'a materialization'). The visual is also prominent here, from the typography of many of the poems to reproduced collages, as well as a variety of images with numerical features. A piece such as 'melodical strokes 1' doesn't have notes but words written on musical manuscript/staff paper, with lines connecting them -- a different kind of 'composition', combining textual, musical, and visual elements in one poem:

Rühm plays with meaning in a variety of ways throughout the collection -- for example, arranging numbers in ways that are not mathematically 'correct', as in 'equitable equation':

4 + 4 = 8
8 + 8 = 4

In 'm1' and '1t' he combines numeral with alphabetical character that together sound out a word, these two poems each consisting of nothing more on the blank page than the pairing in large print (the translation here in small print in square brackets at the bottom of the page explaining how they read in German ("1" being pronounced as: 'eins'): "m + eins = mine" and: "eins + t = once"). (Amusingly, Rühm apparently felt the need to explain even to German readers how these poems 'worked' in his postscript: "if on pages 69 and 70 the eins is pronounced with the m immediately in front of it and in the second case the eins with the t after it, the impression, which may initially seem perplexing, will quickly become obvious." Indeed.)
Several of the poems play with numbers and description-as-content -- most obviously, for example, the sonnet 'sonnet':

first stanza first line
first stanza second line
first stanza third line
first stanza fourth line

second stanza first line
second stanza second line
second stanza third line
second stanza fourth line

third stanza first line
third stanza second line
third stanza third line

fourth stanza first line
fourth stanza second line
fourth stanza third line

       The lengthy 'vita' is one of the poems that comes with "a note on recitation", suggesting how, after a certain point, it can be: "accompanied by incidental music", with Rühm offering several suggestions. The poem itself is, after the opening "entrance", simply a sequence of height/length, beginning with "one centimeter" and proceeding one by one to "one hundred seventy-five centimeters" (yes, 175 lines of this ....) -- at which point the next line is: "all grown one hundred seventy-four centimeters" and a few more lines of decline -- again, centimeter by centimeter -- charting a single human's size as (s)he grows from , basically, conception to death.
       Other poems similarly go through the numbers at length, with, for example, 'time poem' practically epic, listing every day of a year until 31 December, when it shifts to hour by hour, until the last half hour, when it switches to minute by minute, and then the last minute is second by second. It presents the well-known comparison, of when every aspect of existence would have taken place if the time-span from Big Bang to present were considered to be a year: it's 31 December when "10:30 p.m. : the first humans struggle to survive"; it's the 51st second of the last minute of the year when "the alphabet" appears, etc. This poem also comes with "a note on recitation" -- Rühm suggesting: "recited in real time, the 'time poem' would take an entire year" (which certainly sounds like the proper way to do it).
       Several poems are more clearly narrative and/or outright political. Rare poems that include capitalized words (quoting from press reports and statements, presumably) are 'an austrian counting poem', as well as 'only':

A relatively quiet week
on Austria's roads
Only eight people
lost their lives

due to accidents.
Whereas eighteen died
during the same week
the previous year.

19.04.1997

       Other political commentary on various issues is found in poems such as 'a christian arithmetic lesson' or 'climate change', the latter subtitled: "a joke that gets out of hand"
       The variety in the folded clock is almost astonishingly great. If all conceived somehow around numbers, Rühm does much more than simply offer a few variations on a few themes -- of either subject matter or approach. Enumeration is one favorite, but other approaches take very different tacks, to various and very different effects. In addition, Rühm's interest in the sound -- whether as actual music ('the misfortune of being lucky' is presented as an: "operetta for one voice") or recitation --, and in the look of the poems -- whether as typographical-arrangement, in collages, or in simple drawings -- makes for additional ways of seeing (in the broadest sense of the word) these pieces.
       It all makes for an interesting and rich collection that goes beyond being mere exercises in playing with numbers.

- M.A.Orthofer, 4 January 2026

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Links:

the folded clock:

Twisted Spoon Press publicity page
Ritter Verlag publicity page
Excerpts

Reviews:

Other books by Gerhard Rühm under review:

cake & prostheses

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of German literature
See Index of Poetry
Other books from Twisted Spoon Press under review

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About the Author:

Austrian author Gerhard Rühm was born in 1930.

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