Haus für Poesie

Manuel Alegre (b. 1936 in Coimbra, Portugal) became an opponent of the Salazar regime while he was a law student. He was arrested during his military service for taking part in a coup. After a ten-year exile in Algeria and Paris, he returned to Portugal in 1974 at the beginning of the Carnation Revolution. He has been a Member of Parliament for the Portuguese Socialist Party and is currently the Vice-President of the Parliament.
In his work, Alegre deals with the experience of loss of homeland and exile; the first-person narrator of his poems is concerned with seeking a home in language. "It is impossible to tell what is real and what is fiction. True poems in prose, they speak of a dream of freedom and returning home, lived and written in blood." (José Augusto Seabra)
Many of Alegre's poems have been set to music and translated into several languages. He has received many literary prizes, including the António Botto Prize for Children's Literature (1998) and the Pessoa Prize (1999). He was awarded the D. Dinis Prize in 2008.
Selected bibliography
Poetry
Praça da Canção (1965)
O Canto e as Armas (1967)
Um Barco para Ítaca (1971)
Coisa Amar, Coisas do Mar (1976)
Nova do Achamento (1979)
Atlântico (1981)
Babilónia (1983)
Chegar Aqui (1984)
Aicha Conticha (1984)
Rua de Baixo (1990)
A Rosa e o Compasso (1991)
Com que Pena (1992)
As Naus de Verde Pinho (1996)
Alentejo e Ninguém (1996)
Che (1997)
Diálogos = Cristina Valada + Manuel Alegre (2001)
Prose
Jornada de África (1989)
O Homem do País Azul (1989)
Alma (1995)
Contra a Corrente (1997)
A Terceira Rosa (1998)
Uma Carga de Cavalaria (1999)
Arte de Marear (2002)
Cão Como Nós (2002)
Um Velho em Arzila (2003)
Rafael (2004)
O Quadrado (2005)

The performance artist, author and musician Arnaldo Antunes (*1960, São Paulo) stands out for the diversity of his work, which makes him unique not only in the cultural scene of Brazil. He writes poetry, paints, creates exhibits and publishes art magazines. “There is no separation of life and art in primitive societies. Separation came with civilisation: music is to be listened to, literature to be read. Modernity has mixed this up again. We are starting to see visual works that use the spoken word, sound poetry. This has shaken up repertoires, high and low quality repertoires: kitsch and erudite. I always liked the top, never the middle.” From 1982 to 1992, Antunes was a member of the band called “Titãs”, a distinctive force in Brazil’s young music scene. His début solo album “Nome” appeared in 1993 as a Book, Video und CD – a project that linked poetry, music and computer animation. In the same year, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil set his poem ”As coisas” to music. The album “Tribalistas” (2002), recorded with Marisa Monte and Carlinhos Brown, won the Latin Grammy and was a number one hit in Italy and Portugal.
 



Audio (Selection)
Ao vivo no estúdio
Biscoito Fino – 2007
Qualquer
Biscoito Fino – 2006
Saiba
BMG – 2004
Paradeiro
BMG – 2001
O Corpo
BMG – 2000
Um som
BMG – 1998
O silêncio
BMG – 1996
Ninguém
BMG – 1995
Nome
BMG – 1993

Books
Como É que Chama o Nome Disso - Publifolha, 2006.
Frases do Tomé aos Três Anos - Alegoria, 2006.
Antologia - Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal: Quasi, 2006.
ET Eu Tu - São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2003. With photography by Marcia Xavier.
Palavra desordem - São Paulo: Iluminuras, 2002.
Outro - Curitiba: Mirabilia, 2001.
40 escritos - São Paulo: Iluminuras, 2000.
Doble Duplo - Barcelona: Zona de Obras / Tan, 2000. With foreword by David Byrne and Arto Lindsay.
2 ou + corpos no mesmo espaço - São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1997.
Nome - BMG, 1993.
As coisas - São Paulo: Iluminuras, 1992.
Tudos - São Paulo: Iluminuras, 1990.

 Psia - São Paulo: Iluminuras, 1986.
OU E - São Paulo: edição do artista, 1983.
http://www.arnaldoantunes.com.br

Israel Bar Kohav (*1950, Israel) is an author of poetry and prose. He works as a gestalt psychologist and lecturer for creative writing and psychology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Bar Kohav’s poems are influenced by memories of his childhood in the 1950s; he writes in a precise and lively way about intimate themes such as the ego and the search for one’s own identity, dreams and love, but also about art, history, nature and astronomy.
Israel Bar Kohav campaigns for mediation between Arabs and Hebrews and in 2002 was chosen to read before the European Parliament to mark the passage of the Middle East peace agreement. He has to date published ten books, for which he has been awarded numerous literature prizes in Israel and which have been translated into 13 languages.
Selected bibliography:
Poems (1975-1977), (The Hebrew book council, Givatayim 1977)
The Age of Blemished Love. Poems, (Sifriat Hapoalim publishing house, Tel Aviv 1982)
Garden Laws. Poems,  (Sifriat Hapoalim publishing house, Tel Aviv 1987)
The Flight of the Monk. Poems, (Hakibbutz Hameuhad publishing house, Tel Aviv 1996)
Moon Verses. Poems, (Hakibbutz Hameuhad publishing house, and Tel Aviv fund for literature and art, Tel Aviv 1999)
Love, Soon. Poems. (Am Oved Publishing house, Tel Aviv 2005)
Place, No Place. Poems, (Hakibbutz Hameuhad publishing house, and Tel Aviv fund for literature and art, Tel Aviv 2008 (in print))

Inger Christensen (b. 1935 in Veije, Denmark) is considered to be one of Euope's most important poets. She has published mainly poetry, though her work also includes two novels and numerous short stories, radio plays and essays, a play for the theatre and an opera libretto.
Christensen's first two collections of poetry, "Lys“ (Light) und "Graes“ (Grass) appeared in the early Sixties. Her poetic magnum opus is "alfabet“ (Alphabet), a cycle of poems published in 1981, which combines mathematical principles of construction with hypnotic sound structures and precise, opulent imagery.
Inger Christensen has received many prizes for her work, including the European Poetry Prize (1995) and the Siegfried Unseld Prize (2006).
  Christensen has been a member of the Danish Academy of the Arts and the Berlin Academy of the Arts since 1978.
Selected Bibliography
The Painted Room: a tale of Mantua, (Harvill Press in 2000).
Alphabet, (New Directions Publishing 2001).
Butterfly Valley: A Requiem, (New Directions Publishing 2004).
It, (New Directions Publishing 2006).

Lavinia Greenlaw (b. 1962 in London, Great Britain) lives in London and works as a writer, radio producer and critic. Her work for BBC radio includes drama and adaptations, including her adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 'Night and Day', documentaries and reviews, and she has also written novels, an opera libretto, song texts and a poem for the hundredth anniversary of the theory of relativity commissioned by the Science Museum.
Greenlaw has published three volumes of poetry. Her latest collection, 'Minsk' (2003), was nominated for the T:S: Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Prize and translated into German by Raphael Urweider. Her poems are characterised by precise language that takes pleasure in experimentation, and yet, for all their modernity, they remain accessible and understandable.
  Lavinia Greenlaw is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and a member of the Royal Society of Literature. Her third novel, 'The Importance of Music to Girls' was published in 2007. Prizes include the Eric Gregory Award (1990), the Cholmondeley Award (2003) and the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger (2003).
Bibliography
The Cost of Getting Lost in Space, (Turret Books 1991)
Love from a Foreign City, (Slow Dancer Press 1992).
Night Photograph, (Faber and Faber 1993).
A World Where News Travelled Slowly, poetry (Faber and Faber 1997).
Mary George of Allnorthover, novel, (Flamingo 2001).
Minsk, poetry, (Faber and Faber 2003).
Thoughts of a Night Sea (Photographs by Garry Fabian Miller), (Merrell 2003).
An Irresponsible Age, (Fourth Estate 2006).
The Importance of Music to Girls, (Faber and Faber 2007).

Hiromi Ito (b. 1955 in Tokyo, Japan) has been known as a poet with shamanistic qualities since her sensational debut in the late 1970s. Ito has published more than ten collections of poetry as well as essays and translations. She has worked as an illustrator and a teacher of Japanese and edited several poetry magazines. In her publications and readings she seeks contact with other artists, working with illustrators, photographers and musicians. The spectrum of her themes covers the relationship between the genders, being a mother and 60s pop songs, to mention just a few. Prizes include the 21st Noma Literature Award in 1999 and the Takami Jun Award (2005).
Selected Bibliography
Kusaki no Sora (The Plants and the Sky), (Tokyo: Atelier Publishing Planning 1978).
Princess, (Tokyo: Shiyosha 1979).
Oume (Green Plums), (Tokyo: Shichosha 1982).
Territory-Ron 2 (On Territory 2), (Tokyo: Shichosa 1985).
Territory-Ron 1 (On Terriory 1), Co-authored with Nobuyoshi Araki. (Tokyo: Shichosha 1987).
Collected Poems of Hiromi Ito: Contemporary Poetry Series, (Tokyo: Shichosha 1988).
Watashi wa Anjuhimeko de aru (I am Anjuhimeko), (Tokyo: Shichosha 1993).
Te, Ashi, Niku, Karada (Hand, Foot, Flesh, Body), Co-authored with Miyako Ishiuchi, (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo 1995).
Kawara Arekusa (Wild Grass upon a Riverbank), (Tokyo: Shichosha 2005).
Anthologies in English
other side river, Edited and Trans. Leza Lowitz and Miyuki Aoyama, (California: Stone Bridge Press 1995).

American Spoken Word artist Ursula Rucker combines poetry with politics and music. Rucker grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia and graduated from the University there with a degree in Journalism and African History. This background in academic theory can be detected in her poems despite her subjective approach. In her rhythmically spoken texts she deals with being a woman, slavery, love, sexism and politics. Her delivery is serious and in-your-face challenging, but never moralising. Mother of four children, she has already released three albums. In 2005, she headlined the Amnesty International Freedom Tour in Australia.
Publications:
Supa Sista. CD 2001.
Silver or Lead. CD 2003.
Ma´at Mama. CD 2006.

Tomaž Šalamun was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1941, and is regarded as one of Slovenia’s greatest contemporary poets and one of the leading figures of the East European poetic avantgarde. His poetry is marked by a unique surrealistic style. Since the 1960s he has published 41 volumes of verse, which have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Šalamun grew up in Koper in the former Yugoslavia. Under Tito’s rule he was arrested in 1964 for publishing a poem that was taken to be critical of the regime, but was able to leave prison after five days thanks to a wave of international protest. Šalamun has for decades been a wanderer between worlds, spending several years in the USA where among other things he was a guest of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Fulbright Fellow at Columbia University. He taught in American universities and was cultural attaché at the Slovenian Embassy in New York. The many prizes he has won for his work include the Pushcart Prize, the Slovenian Prešeren Prize and, jointly with his German translator the Fabjan Hafner, the Prize of the City of Münster for International Poetry. He is a member of the Slovenian Academy for Arts and Sciences and lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

Publications in English translation

The Selected Poems of Tomaž Šalamun (Ecco Press, 1998)
The Shepherd, the Hunter (Pedernal, 1992)
The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine, 1997)
Feast (Harcourt, 2000)
Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse)
Row! (Arc Publications)
The Book for My Brother (Harcourt)
Woods and Chalices (Harcourt)
There's the Hand and There's the Arid Chair (Counterpath, 2009)

Ulf Stolterfoht (born in Stuttgart in 1963) became known for his fachsprachen (‘lingos’) series of books of poems, published by Urs Engeler). He has also translated Getrude Stein, conversed with Peter Dittmer‘s AMME (‘Nursie’) about poetry matters (Ammengespräche,  roughbooks 2011) and founded the virtual empire BRUETERICH, the poetry service for experimental poetry.
Through its imitative strategies, his poetry draws attention to the disconnect between world and language. His poems reveal a fascination with poetic method, language itself being in particular analysed as a means of creation. What is the carrying range of language, how clearly can it communicate, and at what point does it start to deceive?
From 2008 to 2009 he was a guest professor at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. Prizes he has been awarded include the 2005 Anna Seghers Prize and the 2008 Peter Huchel Prize. In 2009 he and Barbara Köhler shared the Erlangen Literature Prize for Poetry in Translation.
Publications (selection):
Fachsprachen I-IX.  poems, Urs Engeler 1998.
holzrauch über heslach. poems, Urs Engeler 2007.
Ammengespräche. poems, roughbooks 2010.
handapparat heslach: Quellen und Materialien, roughbooks 2011
Aufkommender Atem, Suhrkamp-Verlag 2011

Serhij Zhadan (b. 1974 in Starobilsk, Ukraine) studied German Studies at the Pedagogic University of Charkiv before gaining a doctorate with a thesis on Ukrainian Futurism. He is the enfant terrible of contemporary Ukrainian literature. He is an explosive talent popular with the younger generation of readers who came to prominence while still relatively young with his ability to make rapid shifts between poetic techniques. He wrote texts, mainly poetry, while still a student, and later turned to prose as well. His debut collection in 1995 was 'Zytatnyk', which was followed by numerous collections of poetry and prose.
  In 2006 Serhij Zhadan received the Hubert Burda Prize for Eastern European Poetry. In addition to writing, he organises festivals (including the Anarchy Festival in Guljaj-Pole) and translates from German, Russian and Belarussian.

Selected bibliography
The Book of Quotations (poems, 1995).
General Judas (poems, 1995).
Pepsi (poems, 1998).
the very very best poems, psychodelic stories of fighting and other bullshit (poems, 2000).
Ballads on War and Reconstruction (poems, 2001).
History of Culture at the Turn of This Century (poems, 2003).
Big Mac (prose, 2003).