History
Dzejnieki 2023
ANNA AUZIŅA | LATVIA
Anna Auziņa is a Latvian poet, writer and painter, born in 1975, in a family of writers. Her paintings have been exhibited since 1994, she has had solo exhibitions, has written four well received, prize-winning collections of poetry (Isolated Gardens in 1995, Skiers Kissing in the Snow in 2001, I Looked Happy in 2010 and Anna's Dowry Cow in 2017). She is also the author of the novel The Dwelling. Teresa’s Diary (2021). Anna Auziņa has worked as a copywriter, and does research in literary studies, as well as writes reviews of books of poetry, theatre plays, and is actively involved in the art world and criticism. In 2019 Auzina defended her doctoral dissertation “Woman’s Experience and Language: The Poetry of Vizma Belševica, Ārija Elksne and Monta Kroma in the Context of Their Time”, where she examined the poetry of three key women representatives of 20th-century Latvian poetry.Her poem I Have a Book Inside Me is a bright example of poetry accumulating the biography of the author, and it has also been awarded the Olivereto Prize. Poems are often personal, yet well grounded in detailed references to objective reality and her memories of experiences as a child, a woman, and A human being.
ARTIS OSTUPS | LATVIA
Artis Ostups (1988) is a Latvian poet and scholar. He studied philosophy at the University of Latvia, and attended the Charles University in Prague. He currently studies comparative literature at the University of Tartu and works for the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia. Since 2014, he is the editor-in-chief of the online literary magazine Punctum. Ostups’s first collection Comrade Snow (Biedrs Sniegs, 2010) was praised instantly by many readers, got nominated for the Latvian Literary Award as the best debut, and received the special Ojārs Vācietis award. His second collection Photograph and Scissors (Fotogrāfija un šķēres, 2013) has been widely reviewed by literary critics and attentive readers. His third collection Gestures (Žesti, 2016) was later published in English by Ugly Duckling Presse. His fourth collection Variations on the Theme of A Moon (Variācijas par mēness tēmu) came out in 2022 and received The Days of Poetry Prize. Ostups’s poetry has been translated into Croatian, Czech, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian, and Slovenian.
ATHENA FARROUKHZAD | SWEDEN
The poet, playwright, literary critic, and translator Athena Farrokhzad (1983) was born in Tehran. Her parents were in Sweden, fleeing the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). She has published several collections of poetry: Vitsvit, 2013, Trado (2016) (collaboration with the Romanian poet Svetlana Cârstean), I röleşte, (2019), Åsnans år (2016). The poet also won several prestigious awards, including the Karin Boye Literature Award in 2013 and the Stora Läsarpriset Award in 2014. The debut collection Vitsvit (White Blight, 2013) has so far been translated into fifteen languages, and the collection has also been dramatized; some of the Latvian translation from Vitsvit is also included in the program of the PAGE BREAK poetry festival. The lyrical "I" in the collection is the transmitter of the family story/experience and the defender of complaints, a white page where a family story is written. The voice of the lyrical "I" is heard only in the first poem; the story is followed by others, making the lyrical "I" (and also the reader) both the accused and the defendant in the hearing. The very name of the collection opens up vast possibilities of interpretation [the whitest whiteness, the whiteness of whiteness, the suite of whiteness, etc.]. This year's theme of the poetry festival resonates with such motifs as heritage, knowing one's roots and identity (including trauma).
GRIGORY SEMENCHUK | UKRAINE
Poet, musician, cultural manager. Born in 1991, in Chmelnitsky, Ukraine. Director of NGO "Art Council "Dialogue" (since 2015). Director of Festival “Authors’ Reading Month in Lviv”. Author of three poetry books "Internal Jihad" (Meridian Czernowitz, Chernivtsi, 2012), "More verses and songs" (Old Lion Publishing House, Lviv, 2015), “According to the original” (Lyuta Sprava, Kyiv, 2021) Some verses was published in more than 15 anthologies of poetry. Member of musical projects "BRAT", "LANDSCHAFT" and "DRUMTYATR". Editor of contemporary Ukrainian poetry anthology "Letters from Ukraine" (2016, in Polish and English translations) and co-editor of Australian-Ukrainian poetry anthology "AU\UA" (2012). Some verses and articles was translated to German (“Literatur und Kritik”, “Radar”, anthology "Jahrbuch die poesie", "Die Rampe"), Polish (“Tygiel Kultury”, "Kontext", "Listy z Ukrainy" anthology, “Fabularie”), Czech ("More verses and songs" (short version) published in Vetrne Mlyny, Brno, 2015), Italian (anthology “Made In Ukraine”, Thauma Edizioni, Pesaro, 2013) English (contemporary ukrainian poetry anthology "Letters from Ukraine", Lviv, AC Dialogue, 2016), Belarusian, Slovakian, French, Romanian, Estonian languages. He lives in Lviv, Ukraine.
KADİR AYDEMİR | TURKEY
Kadir Aydemir was born 13 th September 1977 in İstanbul. After graduating Fenerbahçe High School, he studied business management and public relations at university for a while. His early poems were published in “Şiir-Oku” (Read- poem) magazine. His poems and writings have been seen in various magazines. He published 11 issues of the periodical “Başka” (The Other) poem magazine betweeen 1997 and 2003. He has been the editor of the website www.yitikulke.com that he founded since 2000. The book named “Gölü Emen Mektup” (The Letter That Absorbed The Lake) was published in Azerbaijani language in Azerbaijan. “Aşksız Gölgeler” (Lieblose Schatten), short stories, was published in German language in Germany, 2103. His poems were translated into languages such as English, French, Armenian, Azerbaijani language, Bulgarian language, Japanese, Russian. He also writes stories and proses. He admires Yannis Ritsos. He published his first haiku poem magazine called Haikum (My Haiku). Mr. Aydemir is also the founder and the editor of Yitik Ülke Yayınları (Lost Land Publications). He is a member of PEN International.
MAGNÚS SIGURÐSSON | ICELAND
Magnús Sigurðsson (1984) is a poet and translator. Born in a small fishing village in Iceland’s remote Westfjords, in 2019 Sigurðsson received his PhD from the University of Iceland for a dissertation on Emily Dickinson’s reception in Icelandic literature. His debut was a translation of Ezra Pound’s The Pisan Cantos, published by the University of Iceland Press in 2007. In 2008, Sigurðsson was awarded the Tómas Guðmundsson Poetry Prize for his first book of poems, a cycle of love lyrics reverberating and referencing the Roman poet Catullus’ Carmina in Sigurðsson’s Icelandic translation. In 2013, he received the prestigious Jón úr Vör Poetry Award. Author of five collections of intimate, spare lyrics and three works of experimental prose fiction as well as a translator of numerous collections of poetry into Icelandic from English and Norwegian, Sigurðsson has been called “one of Iceland’s most noteworthy young authors.” Tími kaldra mána (2013), his third book of poems, was published as Cold Moons in the US in 2017. Sigurðsson’s latest work, Berhöfða líf (2020), is an extensive selection of Emily Dickinson’s poems translated into Icelandic.
MAJA LEE LANGVAD | DENMARK
Maja Lee Langvad (b. 1980) is a writer and translator who lives in Copenhagen. Her work explores themes such as transnational adoption, national identity, racism, kinship, illness, and the act of writing. She translated works by Kim Hyesoon, Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas, and Max Frisch. She has been awarded Danish Fiction Writers’ Honorary Price.
MARKO POGAČAR | CROATIA
Marko Pogačar was born in 1984 in Split, Yugoslavia. He has published fifteen books of poetry, essays and prose, for which he received Croatian and international awards. In 2014, he edited the Young Croatian Lyric anthology, followed by The Edge of a Page: New Poetry in Croatia (2019). He was a fellow of, among others, Civitellan Ranieri, Literarische Colloquium Berlin, Récollets-Paris, Passa Porta, Milo Dor, Landis & Gyr Stiftung and DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm fellowships. His books and texts have appeared in more than thirty languages.
MING DI | CHINA/USA
Ming Di is a Chinise/US poet and translator with roots from China, author of seven collections of poetry. She co-translated four books of poetry from Chinese to English including Empty Chairs–Poems by Liu Xia (Graywolf Press 2015) which was a finalist of the Best Translated Book Award 2016 in the US and won a translation prize from Poetry Foundation. She translated six books of poetry into Chinese including Marianne Moore’s Observations (Sichuan Wenyi 2018) and received the Lishan Poetry Award (translation) and the Best Ten Translator Award 2021 in China. Ming Di has edited and co-translated New Cathay–Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Tupelo Press 2013) and New Poetry from China 1917-2017 (Black Square Editions 2019) and compiled seven other anthologies including Women Poets from China and Indigenous Poets from China (forthcoming). She lives between Beijing and Los Angeles and has co-organized international translation workshops in China. She was the editor of China domain of Poetry International Web and co-curator of the China Night at Poetry International Rotterdam in 2013, China Focus at Poesiefestival Berlin in 2015 and East/Southeast Asia-Oceania Channel of Poesia21 World Poetry Day in 2021.
MIRIAM REYES | SPAIN
Miriam Reyes was born in Galicia (ES) and brought up in Caracas (VE), where she studied Literature at Universidad Central de Venezuela. She’s also B.A. on Hispanic Philology and Master in Teaching Spanish as Second Language by Universitat de Barcelona (ES). From 2001 Reyes on, she has published six poetry books, all recently collected in the volume "Extraña manera de estar viva. Poesía 2001-2021." Her poems appear in the most important national and international anthologies of Spanish Contemporary Poetry, the latest of which is the English Ten Contemporary Spanish Women Poets (Shearsman Books, UK, 2020). She performs widely her poetry experimenting with video, music and new technologies on stage, and she is also a freelance translator and editor. She currently lives in Barcelona (ES).
MONICA ASSPRONG | NORWAY
Monica Aasprong (1969) is a Norwegian poet living in Stockholm. As well as a novel and a collection of essays on poetics, she has published four collections of poetry; Soldatmarkedet/Soldier's Market (2006), Et diktet barn/An Invented Child (2010, Sirkelsalme/Circle Psalm (2013) and Mnemosyne Nomenclatur (2018). In 2019 she made her debut as a librettist for a choral work, Sirkling/Circling, by Norwegian composer Maja S. K. Ratkje, at the International Church Music Festival in Oslo. Aasprong has been editor of the literature section of the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet, and together with two colleagues, she founded the literary journal LUJ. Aasprong works with installations and audio works as part of her authorship, has been a postgraduate student at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and has studied comparative literature at the University of Bergen. Her poetry has been translated into about 20 languages.
SANNA KARLSTRÖM | FINLAND
Sanna Karlström (b. 1975) is an author who lives in Helsinki. She has published six books of poetry, the first of which, Taivaan mittakaava (Heaven’s Magnitude), won the Helsingin Sanomat literature prize for the best debut work of literature in 2004. Her third book of poetry, Harry Harlow’n rakkauselämät (The Love Lives of Harry Harlow, 2009) received the Tanssiva karhu poetry prize given out by the national broadcaster, Yleisradio, and the Kalevi Jäntti prize. The book contrasts the cruel animal experiments conducted by the psychologist Harry Harlow in the 1950s with Harlow’s personal relationships. Karlström’s poetry has been translated into ten languages. She has also written a novel, Multaa sataa, Margareta (Margareta, It Is Raining Earth, 2017) and a children’s book, Siilin laulu (The Hedgehog’s Song, 2016), which was illustrated by Marika Maijala. Her most recent book, Pehmeät kudokset (Soft Tissues) was published in 2022. In Alepala (2019), humans struggle through various stages of their lives amidst the mythical landscapes of Alepa, a popular chain of neighbourhood shops, and the Kalevala.
SERGEJS TIMOFEJEVS | LATVIA
Sergej Timofejev (1970) is a poet, journalist, translator, and DJ. He is the author of seven poetry collections. His poems are translated into English, Italian, Swedish, German, Ukrainian, and other languages, and he actively participates in poetry festivals around the world. He was one of the first in the post-soviet cultural space to invent the genre of poetry-video, his first video-poetry work Orchestra Rehearsal was made in 1994 in collaboration with filmmaker Victor Vilx. He is one of the founders of multimedia poetry project Orbita – a creative group of poets and artists, whose works create dialogue among various genres (literature, music, video, photography, VJ, web, etc.) and cultures. Orbita has organized poetry-video and multi-media art festivals Word in Motion (Latvia, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2011). “Orbita” also strives to seek new ways of print publishing and book design. Sergej Timofejev lives in Riga, writes in Russian, publishes his texts in bilingual Russian-Latvian books and continues to mix modern poetry with other art-forms and media. His poetry books were published in Italy, Georgia, Romania, Macedonia, Poland and Estonia.
ULRIKE ALMUT SANDIG | GERMANY
Born in rural East Germany, Ulrike Almut Sandig lives with her family in Berlin. Volumes of short stories, pop music albums, radio pieces, five poetry collections and her novel Monsters like us (Seagull Books 2022) have been published to date. In 2016 Karen Leeder’s translations of Sandig’s poetry collection Thick of it (Seagull Books 2018) won the EUNIC English PEN translation Pitch and was awarded a PEN America/Heim Translation Fund Grant. Her poetry collection I Am a Field Full of Rapeseed, Give Cover to Deer and Shine Like Thirteen Oil Paintings Laid One on Top of the Other (Seagull Books, 2020) reanimate the dark side of The Children’s and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm and use it as a backdrop for contemporary European concerns: war, migration, the rise of the Right. Her latest poetry volume Leuchtende Schafe (Shining Sheep, Seagull Books 2023) brings together powerful visual poems that resonate in the ear and appear as filmic image explosions. Ulrike Almut Sandig’s poetry is on display on the digital network Versopolis and on her own youtube channel. She is co-founding member of the PEN section Berlin.
