News

/ 5 June 2017

A Poet's Fortress

For the fourth year in a row Literaturhaus NÖ in Krems staged a three days meeting of international poets. End of May eight poets from Switzerland, Germany and Austria flocked together and work intensively on another „poetry network meeting“ curated by VERSOPOLIS-poet Christoph W. Bauer.

Like in previous years the selected poets worked in small groups „corresponding“ to each other’s poems. A perfect occasion to shortly present the poets involved (in alphabetical order):

Andreas Altmann was born in Hainichen (Saxony / Germany) and lives in Berlin. He has worked as a typesetter, a roadie for an orchestra, a street sweeper and as a carer. Between 1993 and 1996 he studied social pedagogy. Since then he has published eight volumes of poetry, the last appearing in 2014, titled „Die lichten Lieder der Bäume liegen im Gras und scheinen nur so“ (The second sea).

Elfriede Czurda was born in Wels (Upper Austria) and currently lives in Vienna. She started writing in 1976, publishing her first book, „ein griff“, in 1978.

For her work, which spans the genres of prose, essays, poems, and radio plays, Czurda has been awarded various prizes and scholarships. Her latest books of poetry „Dunkelziffer“ (2011) and „Buch vom Fließen und Stehen“ (2014) were both published at Edition Korrespondenzen.

Erwin Einzinger, was born in Kirchdorf an der Krems (Upper Austria), studied Anglistics and German Languages in Salzburg and lives as a writer and translator in Micheldorf (Upper Austria).

His latest book of poetry, „Ein Messer aus Odessa“ (A knife in Odessa“) dates back to 2009, in the meantime he published two novels – „Von Dschalalabad nach Bad Schallerbach“ (2010) and „Ein kirgisischer Western“ (2015), all books at Jung und Jung.

Sandra Hubinger was born in Upper Austria as well, where she also grew up. Since 2004 she is living in Vienna.

In 2013 she was awarded 3-rd Prize at Feldkircher Lyrikpreis. In 2016 she published „Kaum Gewicht und Rückenwind“ (Lyrik der Gegenwart, Band 56) at Edition Art Science.

Klaus Merz was born 1945 in Aarau / Switzerland and lives as a novelist and poet in Unterkulm / Switzerland. He has published various novels, prose books and poetry books and has been awarded i.e. Gottfried Keller-Prize and Friedrich-Hölderlin-Prize.

In 2016 he published the poetry book „Helios Transport“ (Haymon).

Also the fourth Austrian poet, Robert Schindel, was born in Upper Austria (Bad Hall near Linz). As a child of jewish communists he survived National Socialism in Vienna. He was awarded many prizes, among them Erich-Fried-Prize (1993) and Eduard-Mörike-Prize (2000). Various publications, i.e. „Gebürtig“. Novel (1992), „Immernie“. Poems (2000), „Nervös der Meridian“. Poems (2003). In 2015 he published at Suhrkamp his latest poetry book called „Scharlachnatter“.

Kathrin Schmidt was born in Gotha / Germany and lives in Berlin. For her novels and poems she was awarded various prizes, such as Leonce-und-Lena-Prize in 1993. Her latest poetry book she published in 2010, titled „blinde bienen“ (blind bees), at Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

Armin Senser was born in Biel (Switzerland). Since 1998 he is living in Berlin where he works as poet translator, playwright, and essayist.

He published his first volume of poetry called „Grosses Erwachen“ in 1999. His most recent book „Sensus“ appeared in 2016 at Edition Korrespondenzen.

His poetry depicts metaphysical voyages through landscapes from Lissabon to the Alps or through literary history from Shakespeare to Vergil, from Schiller to Robert Frost, from Nietzsche to Valloton.

The result of the poetry workshop will be published in another anthology and will be presented early December in Krems! It will be an utmost pleasure to finally learn about the new poems created during the workshop in end of May!