The article explains how spoken performance (Sprechgestaltung) and musical setting (Vertonung) can be used as methods of creatively interpreting poetry with students at school and at university. First, a model for the collaborative development of spoken performances and musical settings of poetry is presented. Next, it is shown how a spoken performance and musical setting of the poem “quittenpastete” by the contemporary poet Jan Wagner can be developed collabora-tively by the students after the poem has been discussed in class.

Keywords: spoken performance of poetry, musical setting of poetry, analysis of poetry, didactics of poetry, Jan Wagner, contemporary poetry