Poets
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 (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
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 (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 (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 (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 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