Category Archives: Portrait series

Jörg Piringer: Contemporary writers need to programme

Jörg Piringer is an author and performer of digitally enhanced sound performances and digital visual poetry. Reflecting how we use language every day in a technical environment Jörg decided early on that the very instruments that shape our language experience need attention. Jörg’s instruments are the digital algorithms and data bases of myriads of language fragments alongside his self-produced soft- and hardware.
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Aleksandra Małecka (PL): What is still missing on that map?!

Slowly it is starting to seem to me that in Poland there are plenty of resources and a nutritious basis for establishing a new genetic cultural code of the local literary scene there. At least it appears to me like that when I listen to Aleksandra, vice president, coordinator for international PR and a translator at the NGO Ha!art, who nonetheless says that the Polish experimental scene is still in development. Continue reading Aleksandra Małecka (PL): What is still missing on that map?!

Martin Glaz Serup (DK): All the messages from a Monday. Or Friday

Martin Glaz Serup is an author, writing poetry, children’s books, theoretical papers, he is a blogger and contributor as well as founder of magazines, a literary critic and well, he is also teaching creative and non-creative writing at the University of Copenhagen and at Danish Talent Academy in Holstebro. Goddamn, Serup is a textual jack-of-all-trades, „a gifted and prolific poet“ (Steven J Fowler), innovative and hard-boiled, and a funny guy talking waterfall-like without interruption.

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John Holten (IE/GER): Are you still human?!

The climatic change is unarguable taking place and sets in motion dire consequences. The present-day anthropocene – an age in which humans are no longer an independent species from  others, are no longer the sole creators of their means and images but have a severe and irreversible impact on the conditions of living, it is a worthwhile to think about a kind of literature that can face the demands of nowaday issues and developments. Continue reading John Holten (IE/GER): Are you still human?!

Constantinos Papageorgiou (CY): Performances of daily life

 Constantinos, what is your poetry about?
– It is about me and my multiple selfs. And it is about my past. Writing is a pretty selfish process you know.
– I understand. Sounds nice. In other words you are schizophrenically having sex with yourself.
– (Laughing) Yes, you can say so.
Continue reading Constantinos Papageorgiou (CY): Performances of daily life

Noémi Kiss (HUN): Pop-Rhetorics vs. Literature

Noémi Kiss is a literary woman voice from Hungary whose works are direct, confrontational and critical. By her stories about her travels and about woman specific experiences like pregnancy she developed a rich style and at the same time can address and reveal political in an uncompomising way. 

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Nataša Kramberger (SI): ecology and literature

Nataša is a prize-winning novelist and a literary activist who besides her life as a writer and journalist advocates for the many stories of rural life. Her literary origin is deeply rooted to her upbringing in a small village in Slovenia. She promotes rural life by literature and literary activism derived from oral storystelling, by manufacturing things that are sustainable, that tell a story. She combines literature and ecology. Continue reading Nataša Kramberger (SI): ecology and literature

Maxime Coton (BEL): Simplicity is hard work

Maxime Coton is an author, musician and film maker. He stresses the ordinary; time being generous; repetitious practices in life being in themselves singular and unique moments. Between his two books of poetry several years passed. There was one more collection of short stories this year. Inbetween he decided to make movies and currently he writes a script for the theatre called “vivre virtuel”. The big gestures are not the characterizing bits in his works neither is he drawing the big picture. He extracts the ordinairy as the actually uncommon experience.

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Portrait: Steven J Fowler (GB)

This photo of SJ Fowler comes as “Bear as the Bear”. Best wishes to Jack London. Copywright: Steven J Fowler

This photo of SJ Fowler comes as “Bear as the Bear”. Best wishes to Jack London.

By Julia Schiefer

The atmosphere of the “Hay Festival” in 2014 is buoyant and somewhat noisy. One could imagine that outside of the small frame of the youtube picture there could be people passing by, mumbling to each other, going out or in or stay for a while before moving on. Yet, it is poet/artist Steven J Fowler reading out his poems, that the screen is showing.  Approaching the microphone, he says: “Oh my god, I just realized I am in Mexico” and right in this moment a technician appears out of nowhere to fix the height of his microphone as if he wanted to answer: Yes, my friend, here you are. Before reading out his poetry he states in a brutally honest fashion that he thanks “whoever  insane person who decided to invite me” from London to Mexico, who invited a guy who writes poetry. A  guy who is actually very restless about organizing collaborative poetry events with now over “100 events in over a dozen countries”, and has published just recently his sixth book of his own poetry {Enthusiasm}, doing exhibitions, and before he has been a poet actually was a martial artist. Continue reading Portrait: Steven J Fowler (GB)