Anna Crowe

Anna Crowe Foto: Jemimah Kuhfeld

In her work, the Scottish poet and translator Anna Crowe (born 1945, Plymouth) interweaves internal and external landscapes. With a sensitive attentiveness for the diversity of the experience of nature, she opens perspectives on personal histories and global contexts.

Crowe spent a significant part of her childhood in France and studied French and Spanish at St. Andrews University.

She recently published the works “Finding my Grandparents in the Peloponnese” (2013) and “Figure in Landscape” (2010), for which she won the Society Pamphlet Choice and the Callum MacDonald Memorial Awards in 2011. She has translated the contemporary Catalan poet Joan Margarit and was involved in the publication of an anthology of Catalan poets, “Light Off Water”. Several of her works have in turn been translated into Spanish and Catalan. Crowe lives and works in St. Andrews.

Publications (selected)

Skating Out of the House, Peterloo 1997
A Secret History of Rhubarb, Mariscat Press 2004
Punk with Dulcimer, Peterloo 2006
Figure in a Landscape, Mariscat Press 2010
Finding my Grandparents in the Peloponnese, Mariscat Press 2013

Michael Donhauser

Michael Donhauser

Michael Donhauser’s (born 1956, Vaduz, Liechtenstein) poems are concerned musically with questions of temporality, of decay and of simultaneity – they are “a shimmering in syllables, a unique speaking”. Perceptions are here described without attention to a demanding ‘lyrical I’.

In 1976 Donhauser moved to Vienna to study Theology, then German and Romance Philology. His first book of poems, “Der Holunder” (Elderberry) was published in 1986. Numerous publications followed, which merge together to form an impressive oeuvre include prose as well as poetry and translations (for example, of Arthur Rimbaud and Francis Ponge).

Michael Donhauser has received, among other awards, the 2002 Christian Wagner Prize, the Meraner Prize in 2004, the Ernst Jandl Poetry Prize in 2005 and the 2009 Georg Trakl Prize for Poetry.

 

Publications (selected)

Der Holunder. (Elderberry) Poems, Literaturverlag Droschl 1986
Das Neue Leben. (The New Life) Poems, Residenz Verlag 1994
Die Gärten. (The Gardens) Paris, Urs Engeler Editor 2000
17 Dyptichen in Prosa, in Deutsch und Französisch (17 Diptychs in Prose, in German and French), Edition Meet, 2002
Vom Schnee, (On Snow) Urs Engeler Editor 2003
Venedig: Oktober. (Venice: October) Poems, Das Wunderhorn 2003
Livia. Novel, Urs Engeler Editor 2004
Variationen in Prosa, Variationen im März (Variations in Prose, Variations in March), Matthes & Seitz 2013

Ulrike Draesner

Ulrike Draesner Foto: Amsel

Richard Pietraß wrote of the poet, novelist and essayist Ulrike Draesner (born 1962, Munich) that she has her “finger on the wounds of modernity”. In 1995 her first book of poems, “gedächtnisschleifen” (memory loops) was published. In it, the author deals exactingly with personal and social histories, construing linguistically shrewd and complex networks. The publications which have appeared since, in poetry and prose, take a testing look at contemporary Germany and its historical development, and make pointed observations on advances in science.

Draesner concluded her studies in German and English Philology and Philosophy in Oxford and Munich, where she received her PhD in 1992 with a study on Eschenbach’s “Parzival”. She has received numerous awards for her works, most recently the Joachim Ringelnatz Prize for poetry. Draesner translates from English and French, including writers such as Gertrude Stein, Hilda Doolittle and Louise Glück. In March of this year her novel “Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt” (Seven Jumps from the End of the Earth) will be published.

Publications (selected)

Gedächtnisschleifen. (Memory Loops) Poems, Luchterhand 1995
Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt (Seven Jumps from the End of the Earth), Luchterhand 2014

 

Odile Kennel

Odile Kennel Foto: Heike Bogenberger

Her first book of poetry was published in 2013. In this book, “oder wie heißt diese interplanetare Luft” (or what do you call this interplanetary air), Odile Kennel (born 1967, Bühl/Baden) sonorously and sensuously describes a present, which permits moments of transcendence even in its quotidian simplicity.

The prose and poetry writer, who grew up bilingual, has distinguished herself through her active translation work. From the French, Portuguese and Spanish, she has translated contemporary poets such as Ricardo Domeneck, Damaris Calderón and Jean Portante.

Before moving to Berlin in 1999, she studied Cultural Studies and Political Science in Tübingen, Berlin and Lisbon, as well as Cultural Management in Dijon and Bukarest.

In 2014 Kennel won second place in the Munich Poetry Prize. She has been awarded numerous scholarships.

Publications (selected)

oder wie heißt diese interplanetare Luft (or what do you call this interplanetary air), dtv premium 2013
Was Ida sagt (What Ida says), dtv premium 2011
Wimpernflug, eine atemlose Erzählung (Eyelash-flight, a Breathless Story), Edition Ebersbach 2000

Dagmara Kraus

Dagmara Kraus Foto: Katja Zimmermann

“The Gloomerang names no special dictionary” writes the poet and translator Dagmara Kraus (born 1981, Wrocław, Poland). The title of her latest book of poems (Kummerang) immediately connects emotion, a throwing weapon and movement in the creation of a neologism.

After her first poetry collection came a second publication, “kleine grammaturgie” (minor grammaturgy), in which she works with constructed languages. Especially through her activity as a translator – Kraus has translated the Polish poets Miron Białoszewski and Edward Stachura – she is preoccupied with soundscapes and the creation of meaning.

Kraus studied Comparative Literature and Art History in Leipzig, Berlin and Paris, as well as Literary Writing at the German Institute for Literature. She was awarded the Prosanova Audience Award in 2008, and the GWK Grant in 2010.

Publications (selected)

Kummerang. Gedichte, kookbooks 2012
revolvers für flubis (revolvers for flubis), SuKuLTuR 2013
kleine grammaturgie (minor grammaturgy). Poems, roughbooks 2013

Björn Kuhligk

Björn Kuhligk Foto: gezett

Björn Kuhligk’s (born 1975, Berlin) poems revolve “half humorously, half solemnly around love, sex, birth, death, drinking, traveling, Berlin and music”. They are incisive snapshots that, often freely collaged onto one another, offer continual flashes of clarity. Even though his latest collection ”Die Stille zwischen Null und Eins” (The Stillness Between Zero and One) is set in the bucolic surroundings of Berlin, he maintains the critical, self-deprecatory distance that characterizes his city scenes and evades a schmaltzy romanticism of nature.

Kuhligk is also an organiser, supporter and cataloguer of the young German poetry scene. From 1996 until 1999 he ran the reading series “Die Schwarzleserey”. From 2002 till 2006 he was editor of the Berlin magazine “lauter niemand”, with Tom Schulz he published from 1997 until 1999 “edition minotaurus” and together with Jan Wagner he edited the 2003 and the 2008 anthologies “Lyrik von Jetzt” (Poetry from Now) I and II.

Most recently he won the 2013 Art Prize Literature from Brandenburg Lotto.

 

Publications (selected)

Es gibt hier keine Küstenstraßen. (There are no Coastal Streets Here) Poems, Lyrikedition 2001

Am Ende kommen Touristen. (At the End the Tourists Come) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2002

Großes Kino. (Big Cinema) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2005

Leben läuft. (Life Goes) Texts, SuKuLTuR Verlag 2005

Der Wald im Zimmer, Eine Harzreise (The Forest in the Room, a Harz Journey) (together with Jan Wagner), Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag 2007

Von der Oberfläche der Erde. (From the Face of the Earth) Poems, Berlin Verlag 2009

Bodenpersonal. (Floor Staff) Texts, Verlagshaus J. Frank 2010

Die Stille zwischen null und eins, (The Stillness Between Zero and One) Hanser 2013

Peter Mackay

Peter Mackay

Peter Mackay’s (born 1979, Isle of Lewis) texts are influenced by the long and tumultuous history of his birthplace, in which the “names and nouns are relics and scorings of different cultures – Norse, Gaelic, Scottish, Anglo-Saxon”. As such, he writes in Scottish-Gaelic as well as English, and links the traditions of the old languages and the myths and tropes that they transmit, with a present which is marked by constant breaks, a continual changing and remembering.

Mackay has lived in Glasgow, Barcelona, Dublin and Edinburgh and currently works as a lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. In his academic work he has published diverse books on Gaelic, Scottish and Irish poetry and literature. He has translated poems from Spanish, Danish, French and Irish-Gaelic into English.

Mackay was nominated for the “Donald Meek” and “Duais Colmchille” Prizes. His poems have been published in diverse magazines, and his book of poems “Bàta Taigh Bàta / Boat House Boat” is to be published by Acair Press in 2014.

 

Publications (selected)

From Another Island, Clutag Press 2010
Bàta Taigh Bàta / Boat House Boat, Acair 2014

J.O. Morgan

J.O. Morgan

J. O. Morgan (born 1978 Edinburgh) lives on a small farm in The Scottish Borders. In 2009 he won the Aldeburgh First Poetry Prize with his book-length poem about a young boy named Rocky from the Isle of Skye. The lyrically treated biographical sketch “Natural Mechanical” excited the jury with its complex yet accessible handling of a personal history. Morgan’s texts move between truth and fiction, tradition and individual perspective, and distinguish themselves through a dexterous use of various verse forms.

Following “Natural Mechanical”, the poetry collection “Long Cuts” was published in 2012, and was nominated for the “Scottish Book Award”, and in 2014 the disturbing reworking of the Anglo-saxon text about the Battle of Maldon in 991AD “At Maldon” appeared.

 

Publications

Natural Mechanical, CB Editions 2009
Long Cuts, CB Editions 2012
At Maldon, CB Editions 2014

Don Paterson

Don Paterson Foto: McLeod

Don Paterson, born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963, is thought of as one of the greatest poetic talents of his generation. A master of classical forms and poet of everyday things, Paterson’s poetry is in the tradition of Scottish poetry without being traditionalistic. Whether he writes about the death of a pet, morphine boxes lying around or the felling of an old tree, there’s always more at stake in a Paterson poem. One could even say everything is at stake. The Independent wrote of him that he is “one of the few contemporary poets whose work combines postmodern playfulness with a feel for the yearning for transcendence.”

His preoccupation with poetry has always run parallel to his preoccupation with music. In 1984 Paterson moved to London to work as a jazz musician and started writing poems at about the same time. During the 90s he lived between England and Scotland and between art forms. He wrote and played music, wrote columns on painting and reviewed video games for the Times. Even now he works in several genres, writing aphorisms and plays for stage and radio as well as poems and continuing to compose music. He is the poetry editor for the renowned Picador publishing house and Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews. He has published six volumes of poetry since 1993 and won many prizes, being the first poet to win the T.S. Eliot Prize twice. He was made an OBE in 2008.

Publications (a selection):

Nil Nil (Faber 1993)
God's Gift to Women (Faber 1997)
White Lie. Selected Poems (Graywolf 2001)
Landing Light (Faber 2003)
Orpheus – after Rilke's Die Sonette an Orpheus (Faber 2006)
Rain (Faber 2009)

Robin Robertson

Robin Robertson Foto: Murdo McLeod

Robin Robertson’s (born 1955, Scone/Perthshire) poems have their roots in the rich tradition of Greek myths and Celtic folklore. They evoke, in forceful and melodious language, the arresting landscape and nature of North East Scotland.

In 1997, Robertson’s book of poems “A Painted Field” won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. For this publication, he also received the Adleburgh Poetry Festival Prize and the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year Prize.  The book was also one of the Sunday Times Books of the Year.

As a publisher, Robertson is also an institution in British literature. Among others, he has brought out works by Anne Carson, J.M. Coetzee, Seamus Deane, Geoffrey Hill, Michael Longley and Sharon Olds.

His selected poems will be published this Autumn by FGS and Picador, under the title “Sailing the Forest”.

Publications (selected)

A Painted Field, Picador 1997
Slow Air, Harcourt 2002
Swithering, Harcourt 2006
Euripides, Medea, Random House 2008
The Wrecking Light, Picador 2010
Hill of Doors, Picador 2013

Ryan Van Winkle

Ryan Van Winkle © Sabina Theijs

Ryan van Winkle (b. 1977 in New Haven, USA) lives in Edinburgh, but originally comes from Connecticut. When he went to Scotland for the first time at the turn of the millennium, he lost his heart to the country and its people and stayed.

Ryan is a bundle of artistic energy. He writes poems, conquers stages with his performances, produces podcasts on art and poetry, interviews writers and artists for magazines and translates poems from the remotest regions of the world. He also works as a literature disseminator, developing offbeat formats for bringing literature to his audiences, as for instance cabaret or temporary room installations or through culinary dishes inspired by poems. For the initiative “Highlight Arts” he organises festivals and translation workshops, including to date in Syria, Pakistan and Iraq.

Ryan is a member of various artists’ collectives and works with musicians and filmmakers. He was the first Reader in Residence at the Scottish Poetry Library and, in addition to publishing two volumes of his own poetry, he has edited three anthologies of poems from Scotland and Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. These are available as free e-books. Ryan van Winkle was a guest at the 2014 poesiefestival berlin as one of the poets in the Scottish-German VERSschmuggel / reVERSible translation workshop.


Publications:

Tomorrow, We'll Live Here, Salt Publications 2010
The Good Dark, Penned in the Margins 2015

Awards:

Crashaw Prize 2009
Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of the Year Award 2015