On Sunday, the 11th of September, the Versopolis project was presented at the reknown International Literaturfestival in Berlin. This festival is one of the major literary events in Europe, it has wide coverage and a handful of exciting guests – this year it is Margriet de Moor, Colm Toíbín, Paolo Giordano, Alexandra Kleeman and many others.
The cooperation between the Literaturfestival and the Versopolis platform represents an excellent model of cultural programming of and in the future.
The evening featured a poetry reading by three Versopolis poets, namely Krystyna Dabrowska from Poland, Sigurbjörg Thrastardóttir from Iceland and Semier Insayif from Austria. The reading itself was introduced by a short conversation, hosted by Aleš Šteger, one of the initiators of the Versopolis platform from Slovenia.
The guests of the Poetry Night III in detail:
Krystyna Dąbrowska (born in 1979) studied graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She translates poetry from English (including the work of W.C. Williams, W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy and Thom Gunn) and writes radio plays. She has produced three collections of poetry, Biuro podróży (“Travel Agency” 2006), Białe krzesła (“White Chairs”, 2012) and Czas i przesłona (“Time and Aperture”, 2014), for the second of which she and Łukasz Jarosz were jointly awarded the Wisława Szymborska Prize. The same collection also prompted the jury at the Kościelski Foundation to award Dąbrowska their annual prize for emerging writers in 2013. In their justification for their decision they emphasized that here we have “poetry that is sensitive to ephemeral aspects of our everyday life and to intensely felt emotions, and that pinpoints everything about our existence that is left unsaid, passed over in silence, or involves an inexpressible search for its hidden meanings”.
Sigurbjörg's first book, the poetry collection Blálogaland (Land of Blue Flames), was published in 1999 and since then she has published further poetry, prose and plays. Also two novels: Sólar saga (The Story of Sól) – which won the Tómas Guðmundsson Literature Award when it was published in 2002 – and Stekk (Jump) in 2012. Sigurbjörg has also won awards for her poetry: Hnattflug (Circumnavigation) was chosen as the best book of poetry by the staff of Icelandic bookstores in 2000; Blysfarir (Torching) received the Fjöruverðlaunin women´s literature award in 2008; and Brúður (Bride) was nominated for the DV cultural award in 2010. Sigurbjörg´s poetry has been translated into twelve languages in conjunction with various literary conferences, poetry festivals and anthology publications across Europe. Sigurbjörg cooperated with four other Icelandic authors and five Polish photographers on the book project IS(not), she has worked with the Metropoetica group on various projects, and has also written songlyrics for Icelandic musicians.
Semier Insayif was born in 1965 and he lives in Vienna as a free-lance writer since 1993. His work has been published in various literarature magazines, art catalogues, anthologies and on air. So far he has published five books of poetry: "69 konkrete annäherungsversuche" (poems + cd, edition doppelpunkt, wien 1998), "über gänge verkörpert oder vom verlegen der bewegung in die form der körper" (poems, haymon verlag, innsbruck 2001), "libellen tänze – blau pfeil platt bauch vier fleck", martin hornstein – 6 suiten für violoncello solo von J.S.Bach (BWV 1007-1012), (poems + CD, haymon verlag, innsbruck 2004), "unter schall – gedichte im zweiklang", (offizin s., meran 2007) and "boden los" (poems, haymonverlag, innsbruck 2012). In 2009 he published the novel "faruq" (haymonverlag innsbruck). He received various prizes and scholarships.
