Ars Poetica 2015

The use of language is controlled. The individual poems cover a wide range of form registers but together create thematic and stylistic unity. The imagery is powerful and evocative, and has a unique, lucid quality.

Barnas was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for her first collection of poetry Twee Zonnen (2003) and has since published highly appraised collections. Her latest collection of poems Jaja de oerknal (Yeah-Right the Big Bang), came out in 2013. This book, focusing on mechanisms of fear, was nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize 2014, the Anna Bijns Prijs, as well as the Belgian KANTL prize.

The short film The International Cosmonaut by Maria Barnas
will also be presented at Ars Poetica 2015.

Poems by Maria Barnas.

Christoph W. Bauer explains his work as a continuation of existing traditions. He identifies himself with a "poeta legens", who finds, changes, renews and continues topics from the world literature. Book publications since 1999, among others: "mein lieben, mein hassen, mein mittendrin du", poems, Haymon, 2011 and "In einer Bar unter dem Meer", stories, Haymon, 2013. He was awarded the prestigeous "Tiroler Landespreis für Kunst 2015“.

Her second collection of poetry, Fälla//Trap, was published in February 2015. Pernilla Berglund got here education at Literary Composition at Valand Academy in Gothenburg (2012-2014) and at Biskops-Arnö Creative Writing-school 2001-2002, 2003-2004) and has earned a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature.

Poems by Pernilla Berglund.

He has four poetry books, four Novels, two literary criticism books and many anthologies about Contemporary Turkish Poetry. He worked as an editor in the publishing companies (Imge, Gunes) and literary magazines; Sombahar (Poetry, 1990 - 1996), E (Literature, 2003) and Ozgur Edebiyat (bi-monthly literary magazine, 2007 - 2013). He was the founder and president of the Edisam, Literature and Science Writers Collecting Society (2001 - 2007). He was the General Secretary of the Turkish Publishers Association (1996 - 2011). He is the President of the Turkish Publishers Association (2011 - ). Istanbul International Poetry Festival Board Member and coordinator (2008 - ). He is the editor of the Parantez Publishing (1992 - ).

Stephan Delbos (USA) is a New England-born writer living in Prague, where he writes freelance and teaches at Charles University and Anglo-American University. His poetry, essays and translations have appeared most recently in Absinthe, Agni, Asymptote, Atlanta Review, BlazeVOX, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Fourteen Hills, Full Metal Poem, New Letters, Oxonian Review, Poetry International, Poetry Salzburg Review, Rakish Angel, and Zoland Poetry. He is the editor of From a Terrace in Prague: A Prague Poetry Anthology (Litteraria Pragensia, 2011). His collection of visual, music-inspired poems, “Bagatelles for Typewriter,” was exhibited at Prague’s ArtSpace Gallery in May 2012. His first full-length play, Chetty’s Lullaby, about the life of jazz trumpet legend Chet Baker, has been produced in New York and San Francisco. In 2015 he was the recipient of a PEN/Heim Grant for his co-translation of Vítězslav Nezval’s The Absolute Gravedigger, which is forthcoming from Twisted Spoon Press. He is a founding editor of the online literary journal B O D Y (www.bodyliterature.com).

More about the author at the Ars Poetica European Poetry Forum Site

Zuzana Homolová, Samo Smetana, Miloš Železňák (SK)

Zuzana Homolová is a living legend of Slovak folk music. Despite being 65, and due to her passion for mountaineering, Zuzana sounds surprisingly young and fresh both in her voice and the interpretation of old and forgotten Slovak songs and ballads. Since the start of her career in the 1970’s as a solo singer-songwriter, she has been searching through written archives of Slovak folklore music, and has brought back to life numerous songs which could not have survived without her efforts.

In the new millennium she started to collaborate with other musicians and producers resulting in a contemporary approach to traditional material, sonorous and informed by blues, folk and minimalism. The Zuzana Homolová Trio consists of her longstanding bandmate Samo Smetana playing the violin and a multi -genre guitarist Miloš Železňák, well-known for his jazz, blues and rock projects. Their current project is a concert version of the album I Won’t Let Your Soul Pass Away (Slnkorecords, 2005) and of the album Nothing Like the Joy (Slnkorecords, 2013) proving that the cooperation of these musicians has resulted in new, unexpected and exciting dimensions. While searching for the fundamentals of human existence and for features lurking in the subconscious of the human mind, they capture and emphasise a concise form of songs and stories from the past.

More info on the musicians here: homolova.zeleznak.smetana.sk
More photos of Zuzka Momolová here.
soundcloud.com

In 2001, Stanka Hrastelj (SLO) was named Best Young Poet at the Urška festival of young Slovenian literature. In 2005, Goga published her poetry book Nizki toni (Low Notes), garnering her the Slovenian Book Fair Award for Best Debut. At the 2007 Slovenian Book Days in Maribor, Hrastelj competed in a poetry tournament and won the title of Poet Knight. In 2009, Študentska založba published her second book of poetry, Gospod, nekaj imamo za vas (We’ve Got Something for You, Mister), which put her on the shortlist for the annual Jenko Prize awarded by the Slovene Writers’ Association. Her debut novel Igranje (Play) won the Blue Bird Award for Best Unpublished Work of Literature. Hrastelj also translates poetry from Croatian and Serbian, writes afterwords, hosts literary readings and is an enthusiastic designer of unique clayware.

Poems by Stanka Hrastelj.

Augusta Laar (D) Studied music in Munich (LMU, Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium), Electro-acoustic poetry duo Kunst oder Unfall, with Kalle Aldis Laar. Exhibitions and projects a.o. on poetic communication (Madonna says ...; radiophonic workshops; ...) Initiator and director of the ongoing reading series for female poets Schamrock- Salon der Dichterinnen in Munich since 2009 and the first women poetry festival worldwide Schamrock-Festival der Dichterinnen 2012 and 2014 in Munich and Vienna (www.schamrock.org)

Publications: Als ich Fisch war, ja als ich Fisch war. Poetry book, Allitera Munich 2014; Hingerissen in eurer Mitte, (ed.), Anthology, 1. Schamrock-Festival 2012, Allitera Munich 2013; 99 love poems. Poetry book, Gedok Munich 2012; Cds and artist books (Fanzines I-V) with Kunst oder Unfall; Numerous publications in literary papers and anthologies, radio shows

Kalle Aldis Laar (D) Sound artist, composer, dj, author of radioplays. Founder of the Temporary Soundmuseum, 
an archive of vinyl record documents on contemporary history. 
Exhibitions, performances, project development for overtures.de, art bienniales of Venice and Havana, 
Ars Electronica Vienna, Transmediale Berlin. Lectures on Perception, Sound and Art, 
e.g. Technical University Munich, Nanjang University Singapore.

More photos here.

More than forty of his poetry books, biographies, historical studies, essays and scientific works were published all around the world, namely in the countries like Poland, USA, Croatia and Ukraine. His works on poetry are also known in Greece, Arabic countries, Lithuania and Japan. Lebioda’s verses are famously often a subject of heated debates and he is respected as the voice of his generation of authors. His works are mainly focused on Polish authors, but many of his articles are dedicated to Anglo-American authors such as Faulkner, Singer, Caldwell, Malamud, Murdoch and Golding. Another subject of his interest is the Greek poetry.

Song Lin 宋琳 (PRC) was born in Xiamen, Fujian in 1959; his ancestral home is Ningde. In 1983 he graduated from East China Normal University in Shanghai. In 1991, he moved to France and pursued graduate work in the Department of Far Eastern Studies at Paris 7 University. He then lived in Singapore and Argentina. He’s taught at various universities in China since 2003, and currently writes and paints full-time.

His poetry collections include City Dwellers (Collected Works, 1987), Vestibule (2000), Fragments and Farewell Songs (2006), The City Wall and the Setting Sun (2007), Visiting Mr. Dai on Snowy Nights (2015), Oral Message (2015). His essay collections include Continuous Approaches to Moving Icebergs, and Orpheus Looks Back (2014). He edited the poetry anthologies Blank Etudes (with Zhang Zao, 2002). He’s a poetry editor for the literary journal Today, and an editor for Reading Poetry. He’s on the editorial board for Contemporary International Poetry. He’s a recipient of a Rotterdam International Poetry Award, a Shanghai Literature Magazine Award, and a Dong Dangzi Poetry Award.

Harry Man (GB) holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. Winner of the 2014 Bridges of Struga Award, his first pamphlet Lift (Tall Lighthouse) was nominated for 'Best Pamphlet' in the 2014 Sabotage Awards. The previous year he won second prize in the PEN International Made Up Words Competition and third prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. Man’s work has been widely anthologised, most recently in The Emma Press Anthology of Fatherhood, Coin Opera 2 and Rewiring History. Lift has garnered praise from T. S. Eliot Award winners Sinéad Morrissey and George Szirtes, the latter stating, "The poems are packed to bursting with ideas... Harry Man is one of a young generation of poets defining their own ground and changing ours."

Poems by Harry Man.

Zhao Si 赵四(PRC), poet, essayist, translator, poetics scholar, editor, original name, Zhao Zhifang is the author of 3 books: White Crow (poems, 2005), Gold-in-sand Picker (Prose Poems, 2005), Disappearing, Recalling: 2009-2014 New Poems (2015, forthcoming), which won the "2014 Major Support Project" by Chinese Writers Association. Some of her poems has translated into English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Polish, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Armenian and Macedonian and published on literature magazines in different countries. As a translator, she has translated 2 comprehensive poetry anthologies of Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun: Light-blue-pillow Tower (2014), The Enormous Boiling Mouths of the Sun (2015), 1 poetry book of Polish poet Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda: Shade of Eternity (2015, forthcoming), 1 book-long poem of Vladimir Holan: A Night with Hamlet (2016, forthcoming), and selected poems and essays, theses by Hart Crane (US), Harold Broom (US), Ted Hughes (UK), Tim Lilburn (Canada), Robert Hass (US), Jon Cook (UK), Mikhail N. Epstein (Russia-US), etc. As a poetry theory scholar, she has published more than 30 theses and reviews, including some published on the best Foreign Literature Study Journals in China, such as: Contemporary Foreign Literature, Foreign Literature Bi-Monthly, Foreign Literatures Quarterly, Theoretical Studies In Literature and Art. She also writes Wallace Stevens’ section for college textbooks: An Introduction to Masterpiece of World Literature (2012), Western Modernist Literature (2015). She is currently the translation poetry editor in Poetry Periodical, which is the primary poetry journal of the Chinese Writers Association and the editorial director of the prestigious poetry translation series Contemporary International Poetry.

She is now also on the editorial board of French multi-linguistic web arts magazine LEVURE LITTERAIRE. She has been invited to participate the 2^nd Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival (China, 2009), the 35^th November International Poetry Festival (Poznan, Poland, 2012), the 28^th Vilenica International Literature Festival (Slovenia, 2013), the 53^rd Struga International Poetry Evenings (Macedonia, 2014), and will participate 33^rd Trois-Rivieres International Poetry Festival(2017 season, Quebec, Canada) . She was awarded Marii Konopnickiej Prize for translating and publishing Polish poetry in 2012, The 1^st International Chinese Language Poetry Prize (Excellence Award) in 2013. She lives in Beijing.

Damir Šodan (HR) is poet, playwright, editor and translator. He graduated from Zagreb University with a BA in English Literature and History. He has published five volumes of poetry, Glasovne promjene (Sound Changes), Srednji svijet (The Middle World), Pisma divljem Skitu (Letters to a Wild Scythian), Café Apollinaire (Café Apollinaire), Unutarnji neprijatelj (The Enemy Within, in print), two collections of plays, Zaštićena zona (Safe Area), Noć dugih svjetala (The Night of the Long Beams) and an anthology of contemporary Croatian "neorealist" poetry, Drugom stranom (Different Drum). He was awarded the Držić prize for the burlesque Chic lit (2012) and the 1st prize at the playwriting competition for the ex-Yugoslav writers in Vienna (2000) for the dark comedy Zaštićena zona (Safe Area). Internationally, his work has been featured in magazines such as The American Poetry Review, Spillway, Mississippi Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wolf as well as in anthologies New European Poets, (Graywolf Press, USA, 2008), Les Poétes de la Méditerranée (Gallimard, 2010) and The World Record and A Hundred Years' War (Bloodaxe, UK, 2012). He is an associate editor of Poezija and Quorum magazine in Zagreb, and has translated a number of American poets into Croatian (Charles Simic, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Caver, Leonard Cohen, Richard Brautigan, Frank O'Hara). He is a member of Croatian Writers' Association (HDP) and the Croatian PEN Centre. For many years he has worked as a translator for the United Nations in the Hague, Netherlands, where he still lives. He has participated at many international literary gatherings and festivals and has taught creative writing at the Sierra Nevada College, USA.

Damir Šodan on his guest appearance at Ars Poetica Festival 2015.

Known for a highly textured work that blends the classical tradition of lyricism with contemporary sensibilities, he often revisits Jiangnan landscapes in his poetic imagination. His publications include a book of long poem, Book of Summer • Unbanned Title (2011), a collection of short poems, Guide Map (2013), and a volume of hybrid writing, Flowing Water (1998).

Chen has been the editor of underground poetry journals Works (1982-1984), Tendency (1988-1991) and Southern Poetry Magazine (1992-1994). Previously the poetry editor of the overseas literary and humanities journal, Tendency (1994-1997). He was a judge for the Liu Li'an Poetry Award and the An Gao Poetry Award (1996-99).

Since 2004, he has been the organizer of the annual March 3 Poetry Conference. With Chinese-American poet Zhang Er, he co-edited a bilingual anthology of Chinese contemporary poetry, Another Kind of Nation (Talisman House, 2007). With poet Zhang Zao, he is also the co-editor of the Selected Poetry of Wallace Stevens (East China Normal University Press, 2008).

Michaël Vandebril (B) is a young Flemish poet. In 2012, his poetry debut Het vertrek van Maeterlinck, a collection which appeared immediately in the two most important national languages (Dutch and French) was published by the renowned publishing house De Bezige Bij. In some poems in this volume he collaborated with other poets including the French Jacques Roubaud and the Romanian Doina Ioanid. Vandebril asked a number of video artists (including Swoon) to make ‘video poems’ of his poems. Het vertrek van Maeterlinck was nominated for the C. Buddingh’ Prize for the best debut in Dutch poetry and was awarded the Herman de Coninck Debut Prize. Vandebril performs his poems often and with pleasure. He appeared inter alia at Crossing Border (The Hague), Poëzienacht (Bruges), Dichters in de Prinsentuin (Utrecht) and Festival International de poésie (Namur). His poems have been translated into French, Spanish, English, Serbian, Romanian, Finnish and Turkish.

Poems by Michaël Vandebril.