renshi.eu [GR-LV-UK-CZ-MT-HR-GR]

renshi.eu – A European Dialogue in Verse

Language: english
Translations: german (renshi.eu – ein europäischer Dialog in Versen)

renshi.eu – A European Dialogue in Verse

From January to April 2012, poets from all 27 countries of the European Union and the accession country Croatia wrote a chain poem or, as we call it, Renshi to Europe, for the Berlin Poetry Festival. In this format, the last line of each poem became the first of the next, thus connecting each poet to his/her predecessor. There were five groups with six to seven poets in each, creating five side-by-side chain poems by authors with 23 different native languages. All of the poems were translated into English and German.

The 28 authors involved in the renshi.eu experiment did not focus solely on the politics of the European crisis or the everyday problems of the people, but also the bigger picture, poetically examining the figures and myths of the European idea.  

Greece, as both the focus of the economic crisis and the birthplace of European culture and democracy, was the jumping off point for this Renshi. The Greek poet Yannis Stiggas’s poem was used as the starting point and basis for all five groups.  At the end, he also wrote a final verse that reflected on the extant traces of his own lines in the writing of the other authors.  

The premier of renshi.eu took place on June 2nd, 2012 at the Akademie der 
Künste (Academy of Arts) in Berlin.


renshi.eu is a production of the Berlin Poetry Festival 2012, under the patronage of the European Parliament, sponsored by the German Foreign Office, in cooperation with Literature Across Frontiers and the Education and Culture Directorate General of the European Commission, EUNIC Berlin and lyrikline.org. 
Project coordinators: Alexander Gumz and Juliane Otto

This project was organized by Literaturwerkstatt Berlin and their international partners, many of which belong to the lyrikline.org partner network:

Austria: Grazer Spielstätten GmbH
Belgium: International Center of Fine Arts Bozar
Bulgaria: Literaturen vestnik
Croatia: Croatian P.E.N. Centre
Cyprus: Ideogramma 
Czech Republic: Café Fra
Denmark: Danish Arts Council
Estonia: Estonian Literature Centre
Finland: Nuoren Voiman Liitto / Runokuu Festival
France: La passe du vent
Greece: Greek Culture Foundation
Hungary: Petöfi Irodalmi Múzeum
Ireland: Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival
Italy: Absoluteville / Absolute Poetry
Latvia: Latvian Literature Centre
Lithuania: Koperator – The International Cultural Programme Centre
Luxembourg: Centre national de littérature
Malta: Inizjamed
Netherlands: Nederlands Letterenfonds / Dutch Foundation for Literature
Poland: Instytut Książki Kraków
Portugal: Casa Fernando Pessoa
Romania: Romanian Culture Institute Berlin
Sweden: Rámus förlag
Slovakia: Ars Poetica-International Poetry Festival
Slovenia: Days of Poetry and Wine
Spain: Propost.org
UK: Southbank Centre, London

With the kind support of:

British Council
Bulgarian Embassy and Bulgarian Culture Institute Berlin
Embassy of the Republic of Estonia
Embassy of Ireland
Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in the Federal Republic of Germany
Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania
Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus
Embassy of Spain
Royal Danish Embassy
Swedish Embassy, Berlin
Representation of the German-Speaking Community of Wallonia and the Federation 
Wallonie Brussels
Collegium Hungaricum Berlin
Danish Arts Council
FILI Finnish Literature Exchange
Finland Institute in Germany
Greek Culture Foundation
Institut français Berlin
Institute Ramon Llull
Instituto Cervantes Berlin
Italian Culture Institute Berlin
Culture Ministry of Luxembourg
Austrian Culture Forum Berlin
Romanian Culture Institute Berlin
Slovakian Institute in Berlin
Czech Centre Berlin

renshi.eu [GR-LV-UK-CZ-MT-HR-GR]

* 02.06.2012
lives in: left to right,

Yannis Stiggas (born 1977 in Athens, Greece) has published three collections of verse and his poems have also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. In 2007 he performed in the intothepill project in the Karaoke Poetry Bar in Athens. His poems impress with the power of their imagery and language. By opposing the internal and the external view, and abstract and sensual observations, his texts hover on the margins of perception.

Publications:

Ο δρόμος μέχρι το περίπτερο [The Way to the Kiosk] (Mikri Arktos, 2012)

Poetry collection with German translations: Edition Poesiefestival Berlin (hochroth, 2010)

Ισόπαλο τραύμα [An even wound] (Kedros, 2009)

Η όραση θ' αρχίσει ξανά [Vision will start again] (Kedros, 2006)

Η αλητεία του αίματος [The Vagabondage of blood] (Gavrilidis, 2004)

Arvis Viguls (born 1987 in Latvia) is a student at the Latvian Academy of Art and is a poet and translator and writes for a literary radio programme. He received the Poetry Days Prize Latvian Writers Union’s Annual Award for First Collection of the Year for his first collection of poems, Istaba. Last year he won the Anna Dagda’s Prize for the manuscript of his second collection, 5 am, which is forthcoming in 2012. Arvis Viguls ´translates poetry from the English (Walt Whitman), Spanish (Frederico García Lorca) and Russian (Joseph Brodsky). In 2010 he took part in the international Transpoesie project in Brussels with his poem ‘Durvis’ (The Doors).

Publications:

Istaba (Satori 2009)

Jen Hadfield (born 1978 in Cheshire, England) is the youngest winner ever of the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize, which she was awarded in 2008 for her second collection, Nigh-No-Place when she was just 30. Her poems deal primarily with space, home and the environment, with her passion for the culture of the Shetland Islands, where she lives, having a strong influence on her work, perhaps unsurprisingly since she decided to live in such a solitary and remote place. Jen Hadfield is nevertheless always open to new influences and posts on the the blog http://rogueseeds.blogspot.com. She is currently working on her first novel and is also active in promoting reading and writing for the new creative generation.

Publications:

Almanacs (Bloodaxe 2005)

The Printer's Devil & The Little Bear (Redlake Press/Rogue Seeds 2006)

Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe 2008)

Jonáš Hájek (born 1984 in Prague, Czech Republic) regularly publishes poems in poetry magazines and literary journals, including Lichtungen, Hebenon and Odra. He has brought out two poetry collections and received the Jiří Orten Prize in 2007 for his debut Sut. This is a prize awarded by the City of Prague and the publisher Mladá Fronta to excellent writers and poets under thirty. Jonáš Hájek is also a translator, and has translated Günter Eich’s post-war collection Abgelegene Gehöfte into Czech. As well as poetry, he is involved with music, having studied music in Prague; he plays cello and works as a musican.

Publications:

Suť (Debris) (Fra 2007)

Vlastivěda (Homeland Study) (Fra 2010)

Following her degree in French, Claudia Gauci (born 1976 in Tas-Sliema, Malta) first spent several years working as a languages teacher. In 2008 she moved to Luxembourg to work for the European Commission. She now lives back in her home country, Malta, working as a translator and publisher’s reader. She writes poetry and prose and her first poetry collection is forthcoming in 2012. Her texts have previously appeared in various Maltese anthologies. There is a selection of her poems in English translation in the online edition of The Drunken Boat (http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/gauci.html). Since 2002 she has been a member of the NGO Inizjamed, for which she organises workshops with both Romanian and foreign writers.

Marko Pogačar (born 1984 in Split, Croatia) studied history and comparative literature in Zagreb. He translates from English and American and is the editor-in-chief of Ka/Os journal for literature. Three books of his verse have appeared since 2005, Pijavice nad Santa Cruzom, Poslanice obicnim ljudima and Predmeti. His poems shift deliberately between the need to break with traditional values and notions and doubt as to whether change is at all possible. Marko Pogačar won the Quirinus Annual Award for the best poetry debut in 2006 and has received a fellowship from the Brandenburg Gate Foundation for the Literary Tandem series of talks with Berlin writer and publisher Daniela Seel.

Publications:

Pijavice nad Santa Cruzom, AGM, Zagreb, 2006

Poslanice običnim ljudima, Algoritam, Zagreb, 2007

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