Monica Aasprong (Norway), born in 1969, is a Norwegian poet currently living in Stockholm. She has published five books, one novel and four collections of poetry, Soldatmarkedet/Soldier's Market (2006), Et diktet barn/An Invented Child (2010, Sirkelsalme/Circle Psalm (2013) and Mnemosyne Nomenclatur (2018). At this years International Church Music Festival in Oslo she made her debut as a librettist for a choral work, Sirkling/Circling, comissioned by the Norwegian composer Maja S. K. Ratkje. Aasprong works with installations and audio works as part of her authorship. Circle Psalm has also been performed as a consert and as a sound installation, and the poem has neither a fixed beginning nor end - even the design of the book, by Swedish designer Aron Kullander Östling, plays with the endless shape of the circle. The psalm exists in two different book versions, one of them in a limited edition, that last year was included in the art collection of the city of Copenhagen and this year at the National Museum in Oslo. Aasprong has been a post graduate student at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, and has various editorial experience, including editor in chief of the literature section in the Norwegian Newspaper Morgenbladet, and one of the founders of the Norwegian literary journal LUJ. Her poetry has been translated into 15 languages.

Jaap Blonk (Netherlands), born 1953 in Woerden, is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies. In the late 1970s he started to compose music. A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. From the mid-1990s on Blonk started work with electronics as well. Since 2006 he has been using mathematics again for algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual work and poetry. As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and keen grasp of structure. He has performed around the world, on all continents. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension. Blonk’s recorded output comprises some 40 titles: CDs, vinyl, books and cassettes. From his sound poetry scores he developed an independent body of visual work, which has been published and exhibited.

Dean Bowen (Netherlands) is a poet, performer and psychonaut. He examines the dynamics of the composite identity and how this relates to a political and social positioning of the self. His debut collection Bokman is lyrical, passionate and furious; a personal quest aimed at revealing universal patterns, allowing many voices to speak. In stunning fashion, he unravels his own grief and grievances situated on different continents. In doing so, he uproots hidden histories and dissects the structures that sustain our oppressive political realities. How does one maintain themselves amidst all those mechanisms playing out? Bowen published on the online platforms Samplekanon and Hard//Hoofd and in journals like nY, Tirade, Revisor and de Gids. His poetry and powerful performance have seen him grace stages both nationally and internationally. Bringing him to Belgium, Germany, South-Africa and the US. Bowen won the first ever Van Dale SPOKEN Award and his debut collection Bokman was nominated for the prestigious C. Buddingh’ Award.

Eduard Escoffet (Spain) is a poet from Barcelona. He has worked in different facets of poetry (visual and written poetry, installations, oral poetry, poetic action), but he has focused his interests on sound poetry and poetry readings. Apart from being involved in Barcelona's counter-culture scene, he has also performed in poetry festivals and events all around Europe, in China, the United States, South Africa and many countries in Latin America. He has presented his work in venues and festivals such as Sonar Barcelona, Centre Pompidou (Paris), berlin poesiefestival, Bowery Poetry Club (New York), Roma Poesia, Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Centro Cultural São Paulo, Museo del Chopo (Mexico City) and Fondation Cartier (Paris), among others. In his performances, he combines texts—generally in Catalan—, rhythm, phonetic explorations, electronics and body movements, following the idea that the poem is the sum of all these elements and there’s no clear boundaries between poetry and music. His topics range from the most personal (body, sex, skin limits) to urgent collective issues (climate change, overpopulation, urbanism). He has published the poetry collections Gaire (2012), El terra i el cel (2013, published in Spanish in 2018 as Suelo y cielo) and Menys i tot (LaBreu, 2017), as well as the artist’s book Estramps with Evru (2011). Has published two records with the electronic music band Bradien, Pols (2012) and Escala (2015). From 2017 he’s member of the electronic music and spoken word band Barba Corsini. On the other hand, he was co-director of Barcelona Poesia (Barcelona International Poetry Festival) between 2010 and 2012, and director of PROPOSTA, a festival of sound poetry and contemporary poetry at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (2000-2004). Also curated with Eugeni Bonet the film series Coming Soon on This Screen: Letterist Cinema, between Discrepancy and Revolt at the MACBA, Barcelona (2005), as well as the exhibition The Net in the Forest: Joan Brossa and the Experimental Poetry, 1946-1980 (2019).

Elena Fanailova (Russia) is a poet, critic and journalist. Was born in Voronezh, Central Russia, in 1962, she is graduate of the Voronezh Medical Institute and the Voronezh Sate University where she majored in linguistics. Fanailova has worked as a doctor and as a university teacher. More than 20 years she worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Fanailova is a host of the radio program “Liberty in clubs” that covers various topics from the Beslan tragedy, Ukranian Majdan to modern European and Russian culture for Radio Liberty. Fanailova’s poems have been published in leading literary magazines in Russia and abroad. Translated into 10 languages. Fanailova is the author of eight poetry books and a winner of the Andrei Bely Award (1999) and the Moscow Score Award (2003). Her collections were included in the “Books of the Year” shortlists of Kommersant Publishing House (2008, 2011). In 2013 she was granted a scholarship in Rome by Joseph Brodsky Memorial Foundation. The collection "Lena and the People" was published in Rome in 2015 as translated and edited by Claudia Skandura. Fanailova was a jury member of several prestigious literary awards in Russia. In recent years the area of her professional interest is the Central Europe and Balkans. In 2012-18 she traveled on business trips by Radio Liberty in Ukraine, doing interviews and programs with the Ukrainian intellectuals. She is one of the Sergei Zhadan translators in Russia. Currently lives in Moscow.

Karol Chmel (Slovakia) was born in 1953 in Zvolen. After graduating from the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University in Bratislava, he went through several unconventional professions (from a driver’s assistant to an art therapist in a psychiatric facility), until he settled down as an editor in the publishing house Kalligram and the magazine Fragment. He is currently retired and he is a cyclist, an impatient occasional reader, a persistently occasional author (7 collections to date, the last one – Platforma – released by Modrý Peter Publishing towards the end of 2018) and a much more frequent translator of fiction, essays and poetry from Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian…

Marie Iljašenko (Czech Republic) was born in 1983 in Kiev. Her collection of poems Osip míří na jih (Osip is Heading to the South) was published in 2015 and nominated for the Magnesia Litera Prise in the category Discovery of the Year. She has also been nominated for the Dresdener Literature Prize. Her second collection of poems appears in 2019 and it is titled Sv. Outdoor (St. Outdoor). Occasionally she writes short stories, essays and columns. She is active as a translator and works as an editor in the publishing house. She lives in Prague.

Ian Keteku (Canada) is an award-winning poet and multi-media artist. He is featured in the CBC documentary, IF The Poet. He is a 2009 national slam champion and the 2010 World Poetry Slam champion. Born and raised by Ghanaian parents, Ian’s work is strongly influenced by his upbringing and journeys throughout Africa. Ian is a devout practitioner of Afrofuturism; a philosophy of projecting the black experience into a celestial, technological future. He has collaborated with the governments of Denmark, Morocco and Ghana, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and may others. He has created two albums in the music genre Poetronica, an intimate harmony of spoken word poetry and electronic music. As a multi-media artist Ian has produced thought-provoking poetic short films. He conducts poetry, writing and performance workshops inspiring people to accept the power of their own voice. He recently released his debut book of poetry Black Abacus with Write Bloody North Publishing.

Richard Kitta (Slovakia) is multimedia artist, poet, publisher, culture activist and university teacher. He is an author of poetry books The Land of Secret Amphibians / Poems in p(r)ose (2004) and Invention of the Rainbow (2006). As a digital artist he published the visual poetry cycles – QR Haiku, Wired Partitures (since 2012) and Typo Home Maps (2014). Since 2016 he has performed the interactive poetry project Breathings as well as his multimedia poetry series QR Basho and Typototems within the various presentation platforms. Richard Kitta stands also behind the different artistic projects as DIG gallery, ENTER, MAO and Kotolňa. He is a co-founder of the European House of Poetry Košice which runs the continuous project – New Poetry Forms. He works as a lecturer at New Media Studio at Faculty of Arts TU of Košice, Slovakia.

Thilo Krause (Switzerland) was born in Dresden in 1977. After his degree in economics and engineering, he took a Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Currently, he earns his living in the field of power systems. For his first collection of poems Und das ist alles genug he was awarded the Swiss National Prize for Literature 2012. His second book Um die Dinge ganz zu lassen received the Schiller-Prize and the Clemens-Brentano-Prize of the City of Heidelberg. His recent collection of poems Was wir reden, wenn es gewittert (Carl Hanser Verlag) was awarded the renowned Peter-Huchel-Prize. Thilo Krause lives with his wife and two children in Zurich.

André Matov (Germany). Balkan Jazz, soulpop, avant garde - Berlin-based André Matov's style is infused with influences from a broad musical palette, whether as guitarist, composer or producer. After studying music at the Folkwang University in Essen, he formed his first quintett, MatovsGarage. Shortly after graduation in 2006, André Matov and his band won the competition jazzwerkruhrpreis and recorded their debut CD. Since then André has been busy composing and producing both his own music and also that of other artists, including for film and television. Projects include: ma/tov/trio, Cheli-Duo, The Patillas Family and below c level.

Charl-Pierre Naudé (South Africa) was born in Kokstad, a village on the foothills of the Drakensberg, in August during late snow. He grew up mainly in East London, a windswept city on the eastern seaboard of South Africa, with very wide streets and flat one-storey buildings, and with the only river port in South Africa. He has lived in the metropoles of Cape Town and Johannesburg. He writes in Afrikaans as well as in English, and has has published five volumes of poetry and one novel. He is the recipient of a number of prizes in his home country. He is a journalist, was at one time a social commentator, and is now an academic. He has taken part in a number of European literary festivals and residencies, notably Poetry International Rotterdam, and the Berlin Literature Festival. In 2014-15 he lived in Berlin, Germany as a recipient of the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramme residency. His poems are both philosophical and dreamlike in quality. South Africa is a composite country of various cultures, which includes the African and the European, and elevne languages. He described his role as a writer there as “feeding a hungry Leviathan while you can only see one head at a time”.

Bernd Oezsevim (Germany) is an award-winning drummer whose interest spans from modern improvisation and the many forms of jazz to the traditional music of various cultures. He performs in theatre and dance projects as well as in radio productions, among others for David Lynch, WDR and RBB. He has recorded albums and DVD's for Birth Records, Traumton, Kindred Spirits, JazzHausMusik, Green Deer Music, WISMART Records and others. Current projects include: Gunter Hampel European Quartett, Zodiak Trio, Woima Collective, Invisible Change, Ohne 4 gespiel drei, Onom Agemo. At the age of fourteen he won the German national competition "Jugend musiziert"; he has gone on to receive additional prizes such as "JazzWerkRuhrPreis" and a grant from the Berlin Ministry of Culture (Berliner Senat) in 2016.

Robert Pospiš and Martin Sillay (Slovakia). A renowned musical duo with several award-winning albums and successful music projects under their belt. For years, Pospiš & Sillay have been collaborating with the cream of the local and international scene. They regularly incorporate poetry into their records, treating it as an important cornerstone of the music’s atmosphere. Robert Pospiš himself is a poet. The two Slovak musicians have compiled a special concert program for the Ars Poetrica festival containing an overview of their work, which is closely connected to the world of poetry in a new arrangement. The central duo will be joined on stage by exclusive guests from the local scene.

Claudio Pozzani (Italy) was born in 1961 in Genoa. As a poet, narrator and musician, he participates in the most important international literary festivals. His poems have been translated into over 10 languages and appeared in important anthologies and magazines of international contemporary poetry. Since 1995 Pozzani has been the director of the Genoa International Poetry Festival in Italy, called “Words Wide Open”, which is among the most significant poetry events in Europe. In 2001, he founded the House of Poetry in Genoa, which organizes over 150 free events every year. Over the years, he has created and organized several international poetry events in France, Finland, Belgium, Japan, Austria and Germany. He co-founded the Versopolis platform, which unites 14 European poetry festivals. His most recent works include: La Marcia dell'ombra (CTVrecords), L'orlo del fastidio – Appunti per una rivoluzione tascabile e infettiva (Liberodiscrivere, 2017) and Spalancati spazi – Poesie 1995 – 2016 (Passigli, 2017). For his work, Claudio Pozzani was recently awarded prestigious Montale Prize.

Susanne Ringell (Finland) was born in 1955 in Helsinki, Finland, where she still lives. Ringell has studied at The University of Helsinki and at The Helsinki Theatre School, from where she graduated as an actress in 1981. Ten years later she left the stage to concentrate at her writing. Ringell has continued her relationship with the theater by writing plays and radio plays. In 1995 she was awarded Prix Italia for her radio play The Vestal Virgin and in 2004 she received the Prix Europa Radio France. She made her literary debut in 1993 with short stories and has since then published thirteen more books. She writes in different genres (short stories, poetry, and one novel translated in to French) but mainly short – or very short –short stories. Her work often combines a deep melancholy with humor.

Esther Salmona (France) has a degree from the Parisian École Éstienne in fine arts and graphic industry (Internal Topography, 1996), a degree from ENSP Versailles (Abrupt strait: techno, cycle, process, 2005), a degree from the Aix-en-Provence School of Arts (Submission to the stream, 2007) and she also participated in the Locus Sonus Lab – a sound art project in Villa Arson in Nice. In 2013/2014, she attended an experimental course bridging art, social sciences and politics at the Parisian Science Po. Her work has many faces: she works with image and film, art and sound installations; she creates for the radio, participates in public readings and organizes detached writers’ workshops. She is a lecturer at ENSP. Her work has been published in collective publications and revues: RoTor, KaZak, Revue Laura, D’ici là, Les cahiers de Benjy, Fond Commun, CCP, 17 secondes, fig., SILLO, Ce qui secret, PLI, l’Air nu, Teste, Muscle, Chimère, C.O.I. She wrote two books, Quads (2012) and Amenées (2017).

Martina Straková (Slovakia) debuted with her poetry collection Postcards From Invisible Places (Ars Poetica, 2019). She holds a free creative writing workshop offered for the sixth year to the public by the International poetry festival Ars Poetica. She lives and works in Bratislava.

Shannon Sullivan (USA) is a poet and multidisciplinary performance artist. She terms her approach "Physical Poetry". She favors an earthy, rhythmical language that emanates from the body as opposed to cerebral abstractions. After investigating the intertwining of poetry and movement for many years in such pieces as "13 poems in a body" and "Broken: Part One"; her primary focus has now shifted to the marriage of poetry and music. "The story written on the butterfly's tongue", her first collaboration with the award-winning musicians Bernd Oezsevim and André Matov premiered at Haus Fuer Poesie in Berlin in December 2017. Her most recent creation, "THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN F. & F." celebrated its premiere at the Lettrétage in Berlin in February 2019.

Keston Sutherland (United Kingdom) was born in 1976 in Bristol, UK. He has published many essays and many books of poetry, including Neocosis, Hot White Andy, Stress Position, The Stats on Infinity, The Odes to TL61P and Whither Russia. These have been praised as 'among the most essential works of literature in English in this new millennium.' He lives in Brighton and teaches literature at the University of Sussex.

Veronika Šramatyová (Slovakia), born in 1977 in Zvolen, has been pursuing fine arts and poetry since late 90s. In 2010 she received a doctorate at the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava under the supervision of professor Daniel Fischer. She later taught at the department herself (2015-2017). In 2009, she published her poetry debut Untitled (Ars Poetica, Bratislava) and she is currently about to publish her second collection of poetry. She exhibits both home and abroad and her paintings have been included in numerous significant contemporary art collections. She lives in the countryside close to Bratislava.

Roberta Štěpánková (Slovakia / Czech Republic) is an artist and psychotherapist. She specializes in working with the body and its kinetic material, which can enrich the creative process and encourage the deepening of self-knowledge. Her work is founded on instant composition – the process of creation in the very moment of inception. She studied, lived and worked in Spain and the Netherlands, while currently she resides in Brno. She produces dance, poetry and she is behind the stage design of her own solo performances. She initiated several international art collaborations and she partakes in direction and dramaturgy of stage performances connecting dance, poetry, music and visual arts. She teaches dancing, emphasizing the connection between anatomy and expression; between the body's physiology and its poetry.

Ivan Štrpka (Slovakia) was born on June 30, 1944 in Hlohovec and spent his childhood in southwestern Slovakia. Between 1963 and 1969, he studied the Spanish and Slovak language at the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University. After a short period of working as an editor in literary magazines (Kultúrny život, Mladá tvorba) and publishing houses (Slovenský spisovateľ, Tatran), he worked as a script editor for children and youth programs at the Slovak national television in Bratislava. For political reasons he was not allowed to publish his works during the 70s. In mid-1980s, he became the chief editor of the magazine Mladé rozlety and then deputy chief editor of the newly established literary weekly Literárny týždenník. Between 1990 and 1993, he was chief editor of the weekly Kultúrny život and between 1999 and 2010, he worked as chief editor of the magazine Romboid in Bratislava. He currently lives in Bratislava.

Yekta (France) was born in 1979 in La Vallée aux Loups, near Paris. Yekta is a French poet, performer and musician. He has been published in many poetry reviews, in several anthologies and he has released four poetry books (last release : Broken branches for the stranger, Petra Editions, 2018). He participated in numerous international festivals and his poems have been translated into Bengali, Croatian, English, Flemish, Italian, Macedonian, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. Yekta collaborates to several projects linking words, music and space, including: musical narrations, live poetic actions, soundtracks for videopoems, CD-books with visual artists.