In 1978, S.J. Schmidt, Klaus Ramm and Jörg Drews, professors at the then newly founded Bielefeld University, invited all German-speaking writers from the field of concrete and visual poetry to come to Bielefeld for a discussion and public reading.
In the first year, the event took place in a guesthouse of the university; later on, it was held in ‘Haus Neuland’, located in a forest near Bielefeld. This was very good because, for three days, the focus was essentially on talking to each other – and these talks were very intensive indeed: some of the participants (for example Ernst Jandl) dared to present radically new approaches and were at times faced with severe criticism, which was, however, accepted favourably. The public reading took place at the Bielefeld Art Hall, attracting a large audience.
Uta Brandes and Michael Erlhoff were also invited to the colloquium and participated in the discussions. In 1979, they published an edition of their zweitschrift art magazine entitled “How to write in Bielefeld”. It contained both articles on the New Poetry Colloquium Bielefeld and original texts by the participating writers.