renshi.eu [GR-LU-IT-EE-SE-HU-PT-GR]

renshi.eu – A European Dialogue in Verse

langue: anglais
traductions: allemand (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-LU-IT-EE-SE-HU-PT-GR]

* 02.06.2012
Réside à: 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)

Tom Reisen (born 1971 in Luxembourg, Luxembourg) studied Romance Studies at the University of Caen, where he then took his doctorate in 2001 after a research residence in Paris. From 2004 to 2008 he edited the Tageblatt, Luxembourg’s second-biggest daily newspaper, which is published in German and French, from 2006 as its deputy editor-in-chief. He now works for the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry. Tom Reisen’s first book of verse, Dialogue des limbes, includes poems written between 1987 and 1992. In 2000 this won him the special jury prize in the Concours Littéraire National. His poems deal with childhood memories and literary motifs from French modernism. Reisen also publishes scholarly articles and articles on French literature and Luxembourg cultural life. His field of research is André Gide and the group of writers in the Nouvelle revue française.

Publications:

Dialogue des limbes. Poèmes (Editions PHI/Editpress 2001)

Comme une Promesse (2004)

Été (2011)

Luigi Nacci (born 1978 in Trieste, Italy) is a poet and performer and has published five books of verse in the past few years. He works as a journalist, performs at poetry slams and readings and organises various festivals. He is involved with cultural events in his home city of Trieste, organises the annual Absolute Poetry Festival in Monfalcone and is co-organiser of the Viandanza Festival in Tuscany. He writes on his blog www.nacciluigi.wordpress.com with the title Poetry, walks and other little things about his love of walking, about events and experiences, and published samples of his poems, some with English and German translations.

Publications:

Il poema marino di Eszter (Battello 2005)

Poema disumano (Ed. Michelangelo 2006)

Inter nos/SS (Ed. Galleria Mazzoli 2007)

Madrigale Odessa (D’If 2008)

Maarja Kangro (born 1973 in Tallinn, Estonia) lives in Tallinn, where she was born, and works as a writer, translator and literary critic. Her publications include four volumes of verse, short stories and a children’s book and she has written opera libretti and texts for cantatas. In 2009 she was awarded the Estonian Cultural Endowment`s Literary Award for poetry and the same prize for prose in 2011, thus becoming the youngest person to win in both categories. Her poetry is ironic and surprising, and she is able to draw a perfect image thus making bizarre phenomena appear unexpectedly familiar. Maarja Kangro also translates poetry (Ernst Jandl, Bertolt Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger), philosophical texts (Umberto Eco) and prose. In 2003 she won first prize in the Società Dante Alighieri competition for translating Italian poetry.

Publications (selection):

Kurat õrnal lumel (A Devil on Tender Snow) (Verb 2006)

Tule mu koopasse, mateeria (Come into My Cave, Matter) (Eesti Keele Sihtasutus 2007)

Heureka (Eureka) (Eesti Keele Sihtasutus 2008)

La farfalla dell’irreversibilità (The Butterfly of No Return) (Gattomerlino/Superstripes 2011)

Jenny Tunedal (born 1973 in Malmö, Sweden) lives in the countryside outside Stockholm and works as a poet and literary critic. She studied Englaish and Comparative Literature in Lund and attended courses in journalism in Dublin. Since 2007 she has been the literary editor of thze Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet. From 2004 to 2006 she was editor-in-chief of Lyrikvännen, Sweden’s oldest poetry magazine. She was awarded the Prins Eugens Culture Prize in 2005 for her work as a poet, critic and editor. She is interested in international poetry, especially American. She has translated poems by Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Claudia Rankine.

Publications:

Hejdade, hejdade sken (Wahlström & Widstrand 2003)

Kapitel Ett (Wahlström & Widstrand 2008)

Handflata: Du ska också ha det bra (Eolit förlag, 2009)

Mitt krig, sviter (Wahlström & Widstrand 2011)

Ariel by Sylvia Plath (translation, Ellerströms förlag 2012)

Zoltán Tolvaj (born 1978 in Budapest, Hungary) spent his first few years in Brazil then grew up in Transylvania and Hungary. Since 1998 he has been writing poems, essays and short stories which have been published in many Hungarian literary magazines . He has published two collections of verse. Zoltán Tolvaj studied astrology and Hungarian and Portuguese language and literature, has worked in hostels and as a bar musician and was from 2003 to 2008 the online editor of a Hungarian literature portal. In 2010 he received the Móricz Zsigmond fellowship for young Hungarian writers. He also works as a translator from Brazilian, Portuguese and Galician and has won various literary prizes for his translations, including the Junior Parnassus Prize of the city of Eger.

Publications:

Translation of César Aira’s novel Ghosts (2012)

Filipa Leal (born 1979 in Porto, Portugal) studied journalism in London and Brazilian and Portuguese literature in Porto. Since then she has worked as a poet and journalist in Portugal. She published four books of verse between 2004 and 2009. Her poems are natural and uncontrived, describing apparently everyday things such as trees, houses, books and words, light and shade, days and nights. Fellow Portuguese poet Jorge Sousa Braga has said of her verse, “Filipa Leal constructs her poems as carefully as spiders’ webs, and her readers fall into them like flies.”

Publications:

Talvez os Lírios Compreendam (Perhaps the Lilies Understand) (Fundação Ciência e Desenvolvimento 2004)

A Cicade líquida e Outras Texturas (The Liquid City and Other Textures) (Deriva Editores 2006)v

O Problema de ser Norte (The Problem of Being North) ( Deriva Editores 2008)

A Inexistência de Eva (The Non-Existence of Eve) (Deriva Editores 2009)

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