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  Ingmāra_Balode Ingmāra Balode (1981) lives in Riga, Latvia. Her debut collection, Candies to cut the tongue (2007) was awarded the Best Debut Prize in Latvian Literature. Her poetry has been translated into Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, English and Lithuanian. She is a literary editor and translator at ¼ Satori, a literature and philosophy portal and publishers ( www.satori.lv). Having initially studied sculpture, she has a BA from the Academy of Culture, Riga, in intercultural relations between Latvia and Poland, and is currently working towards an MA in Cultural Theory. She has translated extensively from Polish, including the works of Adam Zagajewski, Stanislaw Baranczak and Dorota Maslowska.  Ingmāra Balode's poetry on Metropoetica
                      

  Julia_Fiedorczuk Julia Fiedorczuk (1975) is a poet, translator, and lecturer in American Literature at Warsaw University, Poland. She has published four volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is Tlen (Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2009). Her first collection ( Listopad nad Narwią)received an award for the best first book of the year (2003). She is also a recipient of Hubert Burda Preis (Vienna, 2005). Her poems have appeared in anthologies in Great Britain, USA, Slovenia and Sweden. Her translations include English and American poetry, prose and criticism (among others: Wallace Stevens, Laura Riding, John Ashbery, Yusef Komunyakaa).   Julia Fiedorczuk's poetry on Metropoetica

sannakarlstro¦êm Sanna Karlstrom (1975) was born in Kokkola, Finland and now lives in Helsinki. She studied creative writing in Topelius Academy in 1994-1995, and has also studied folklore and aesthetics in Jyväskylä and Helsinki Universities. She has published three collections of poetry with Otava, most recently Harry Harlow’n rakkauselämät; her work has been translated into English, Russian, Estonian, German and Swedish, and has been widely anthologised. She has won several awards, including the 2004 Helsingin Sanomat prize for her first book. Sanna Karlstrom's poetry on Metropoetica
                                                                                       

Ana_Pepelnik   Ana Pepelnik (1979) lives in Ljubljana. She studied Comparative Literature and Theory of Literature at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. She works as a presenter for the independent radio station Radio Študent and takes part in music-poetry performances. Her poems have been published in the journals of Literatura and Dialogi. Her first book of poetry Ena od variant kako ravnati s skrivnostjo( One Way to Treat a Secret) was published by LUD Literatura in the Prišleki series; her second book, Utrip oranžnih luči na semaforjih came out in spring 2009. Her translations of poetry into Slovene include the following: Elizabeth Bishop, James M. Schuyler, Matthew Zapruder ( American Linden; Šerpa 2008), Joshua Beckman, Noelle Kocot, Matthew Rohrer, but she also translates into English. Ana Pepelnik's poetry on Metropoetica
                                                                                       

  Zoë_Skoulding Zoë Skoulding (1967) lives in Bangor, Wales. Her most recent collection of poems, Remains of a Future City, was published by Seren in 2008, following The Mirror Tradein 2004. Her collaborations include Dark Wires, with Ian Davidson (West House Books, 2007) and From Here, with visual artist Simonetta Moro (Dusie, 2008). She has a PhD in Creative Writing and currently holds an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts at Bangor University, where she is researching poetry and city space. She has been involved in several projects incorporating poetry, film and music, and is a member of the group Parking Non-Stop whose album Species Corridor was released by Klangbad in 2008. She is a co-editor of Skald and became Editor of the international quarterly Poetry Wales in 2008. Zoe Skoulding's poetry on Metropoetica

Sigurbjorg_Thrastardottir
Sigurbjorg Thrastardottir
(1973) is a writer and columnist in Reykjavik, Iceland. Her debut collection of poetry, Blálogaland (Land of Blue Flames) was published in spring 1999, followed the year after by a collection of road-poetry, Hnattflug (Circumnavigation), which was voted best poetry book of the season by staff-members of Icelandic bookstores. As well as poetry she has written dramatic and prose texts, and her first novel, Sólar saga (The Story of Sun), received the Tomas Gudmundsson Literary Prize in 2002. Her poetry has been translated into several languages and published in anthologies in Germany, Sweden and Italy. A bilingual collection of her poems in Icelandic and English (translated by Bernard Scudder), To bleed straight, was published by Forlagið in 2008. Sigurbjorg Thrastardottir's poetry on Metropoetica

   Elżbieta_Wójcik-Leese Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese translates contemporary Polish poetry into English. Her translations have appeared in, among others, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Ireland Review, Edinburgh Review, Acumen, Magma, Brand, The Wolf, Chicago Review, as well as in various anthologies (most recently New European Poets, Graywolf Press, 2008, and Six Polish Poets, Arc, 2009). She also translates from the English. She regularly reviews poetry translations from Central and Eastern Europe.  She is a contributing editor to Poetry Wales. In co-operation with the British Council, Polish Book Institute and Polish Cultural Institute she has organized translation workshops, seminars and poetry readings in Kraków and in the UK to promote contemporary poetry in translation.  She co-edited (together with Marcin Baran and Anna Skucińska) Carnivorous Boy Carnivorous Bird. Poetry from Poland: A bilingual edition (Brookline, MA: Zephyr Press, 2004). Her Salt Monodyis a selection of fifty-three translations from Marzanna Bogumiła Kielar (Zephyr Press, 2006). She co-edits Przekładaniec, a refereed journal of literary translation published in Kraków, Poland. She lives in Copenhagen.  

                                                                                        

Metropoetica News

Out now: the Metropoetica book

Metropoetica is now a book! You can now find poems, images and essays from each of the poets as well as work made collaboratively in the streets of several European cities. Published by Seren, it can be ordered here for £9.99 from the Seren website.


Metropoetica in Wrocław

Watch Inside Outside - a film from the Metropoetica poets, shot at a performance in the streets of Wrocław in April 2011

Metropoetica in Riga

"We walked in the wide streets, in the pale grey light. We watched the city, photographed it, filmed it, wrote about it, and watched it looking back at us through closed windows, reflections in passing trams and the inscrutable eyes of statues..."   Responses to Riga from the poets - now available online

News archive