Poets from other countries participating in kritya 2008

Margus Lattik was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1973. Basically an English philologist, he is known as Mathura and is the author of five poetry collections, numerous essays and song lyrics. He has also conducted several art exhibitions. He has been involved in translating classical Indian literature into Estonian for more than a decade. His most notable translation is that of the 'Bhagavadgita' (2000). His poetry has been welcomed warmly; it has been nominated for several awards and translated into five other languages.
Margus Lattik is a member of the literary group Apartners (Erakkond). He has also researched on a wide variety of subjects on art and film.


ROCIO GONZALEZ  has a PhD. in Latin-American Literature from the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. In 1998, she received the National Award of Poetry 'Benemarito de America' given by the Universidad Auta Benito Juarez de Oaxaca for the book Las ocho casas; and in 2001 the National Award of Poetry Enriqueta Ochoa was given by the state of Coahuila for the book Lunacero. She has published several collections of poems : Paraiso de fisuras, 1988; eles en vilo, 1993; Interiores del tiempo, 1995; Las ocho casas, 1998 and 2001; Vislumbre, 1999; Luneverses, Montreal, 2001; Pasiones tristes, 2004, Azar que danza, Aldus/SCO, 2006, Lunacero, Ediciones Sin Nombre, 2006 and the essays compilation El lenguaje como resistencia, UAC/Praxis, printing.

Peter Waugh -Born in Barnet, 1956, lives in Vienna since 1981, where he works as a freelance translator and English teacher. Co-founder of Labyrinth and co-editor of Subdream, the Vienna Journal of English Language Poetry, publisher of Labyrinth poetry books. Studied with Allen Ginsberg, Ann Waldman, Jackson Mac Low, Ed Sanders, Andrew Schelling, Blixa Bargeld, Andrei Bitov, Henri Chopin and others. Has organised and participated in numerous readings in Vienna and Austria, including appearances with the groups Dunkler Sand and the Karl Sayer Jazz Sextet and the Erste Wiener Lesetheater. His poetry has appeared in anthologies and magazines in England, the U.S.A., Austria, Slovakia, Macedonia and Croatia, as well as in the chapbooks Horiz
London in on Firelight (2000) and Haiku Butterfly Death Dream (2002). Verse translations include the bilingual German-English volumes Terminal by Klara Kottner-Benigni and Standpoints by Edith Sommer
 

John Siddique  is a powerful, arresting and provocative new poetic voice, on the page, and off it. He writes with a rare combination of directness, ease, and authority and transports his audience through a gallery of moods and registers in just as wide a range of forms. His work is visceral, sensuous, searing, playful, and deeply moving. Gavin Wallace - Head of Literature - Scottish Arts Council John Siddique is one of Britain's most interesting and original poets.

Evelyn Holloway Evelyn Holloway was born in Vienna in 1955. She left Austria for Oxford in 1972 to study English. In the '70s she also lived in Beirut, Athens and Jerusalem. Her poetry and prose has appeared in the Oxford Poetry Review, Freibord, Podium, Wespennest and Literarit䴬 as well as in the anthologies When the Drink Shop Shuts (Oxford, 1985) and Wie es uns gef䬬t (Berlin, 1981). Her play Die Puppe was performed in Vienna in 1995. She also writes film scripts, translates literature and is part of the Erstes Wiener Lesetheater, with whom she has produced readings of Beckett, Ionesco, Max Frisch and Thomas Bernhard. She has been a member of Labyrinth since 1998. She has two CDs where she performs her poetry (Sky Walking and Letters from the Wilderness) and a book with painter David Holmes called Keep Breathing.

Odveig Klyve ( Norway) is a writer and film director. She has published seven poetry collections and eight children's books. She has also translated the work of an Iranian and a Palestinian poet as part of a series of poetry books "The Continent of the Voice" with Cappelen publishers. She has written and directed twelve short films, several of which have been invited to international film festivals in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Northern Ireland, England, USA and India. Klyve has received a three-year National Grant for Artists. www.odveigklyve.no

Araceli Mancilla Zayas was born in Tlalnepantla, Mexico, in 1964. She studied law in Mexico City and has lived in Oaxaca since 1986. Several of her poetry books have been published, including: Desde la sombra (1999); Al centro de la ula (2001); A luz mas cierta (2004); and Instantes de la Llama (2005). She has participated in various readings with international poets throughout Mexico. Some of her work has been selected for anthologies. This year, her poem, Testimonio, was chosen to be part of the poetry anthology published annually by the Mexican Financial Cultural Fund. She currently collaborates in the art and culture magazine called Ciclo Literario - www.cicloliterario.com

Uktamoy (Uktamkhon Kholdorova)  is a talented modern poetess of the Republic of Uzbekistan. She was born in the remote village, Shurqurghon of Namangan region, graduated from Namangan State University's Philological Faculty. Her collections of poems such as Homesick Birds, Relying on Patience, Tracks of a Swan, A Shedding Soul have been published. For several years Uktamoy has worked as an Uzbekistan TV speaker. Presently, she works as a chief editor’s Deputy for the journal Agriculture of Uzbekistan in Tashkent city. She has been a member of Uzbekistan Writers Association since1991. As an artist-poetess of the humane spirit, Uktamoy convincingly describes nature’s landscapes in her verses.

Triin Soomets  graduated from Tartu University as an Estonian philologist and member of the Estonian Writers Union since 1999. She has 8 poetry books to her credit and her Poems have also been published in German, English, Dutch, French, Slovenian, Finnish, Galegian, Polish, Swedish, Portuguese, Russian, Hungarian, Albanian, Latvian, Romanian and Spanish.
The awards she received are - The Most alive book, by Cultural newspaper Sirp (2004), Juhan Liiv annual prize 2000 and was Nominee of Year Award of Estonian poetry 2006, 2004

 

Hanane Aad The French-speaking Lebanese poetess and novelist Venus Khoury-Ghata has written that Hanane Aad's poems reveal a quiet melancholy and that her poetry is a whisper rather than an assertion. She knows how to rise above everyday language, yet uses it like her mother tongue, as the language of poetry: 'Hers is a finely-chiselled writing, and her phrases are sculpted close to the skin'.
At the Lebanese daily newspaper An-Naha, where she worked as a journalist and literary critic between 1995 and 2005, her name will always be associated, especially by those who were working in the cultural section after 1999, with a long series of enormous, interesting interviews with outstanding French-speaking personalities, many of whom are famous worldwide: Andre Makine, Andree Chedid, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Rene de Obaldia, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Venus Khoury-Ghata, Michel Deguy, Olivier Roy, Paule Constant, Bruno Etienne, Bruno Chenu, Jean Lacouture, Richard Millet and others .....
She has published 4 books, 3 of which were collections of poetry:
lou'lou alrouh aala sahwat alkima (2005) (Pearl of the Soul Riding Value).
1999: kama habbat Al hinta ('Like a Grain of Wheat').
1992 sada Al hanin ('The Echo of Nostalgia').
2001 hiwar alsakafat wa ichk Al lougha ('Dialogue of the Cultures and Love of the Language'
She won the International Award for Excellence in Journalism of the International Catholic Union of the Press in 2001.
She won the Prize of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture in 2000.
She gave readings of her poetry in Paris in 2000, in Berlin and Munich in 2006, and in at the festival of Curtea de Arges in Romania in 2008.


Bjorn Gulbrandsen- A film Producer - to make a film on poetry sponsored by Norwegian Film Institute

Kari Klyve-Gulbrandsen (Norway) is a documentary film director and -photographer. She has been director and photographer of several documentary projects. She is running her own film company, settled in Bergen, at the West coast of Norway.

 

Poets from Indian languages  participating in kritya 2008

Dr. Nand Kishore Acharya is one of the foremost creative writers of our times. Beginning his writing career early with an analytical work on the writings of one of the most eminent writers of India, Ajneya, Nand Kishore Acharya himself grew to find his own distinct voice in the affectionate guidance of literatures like Ajneya and Chhagan Mohta. His plays, poems criticism, articles on issues of contemporary concerns and on education and his translations have given Hindi literature a new insight, a new direction and a new recognition of values. A command of almost every genre of creative writing, clear incisive vision and originality of verbal expression has earned him great respect amongst his contemporaries. His writing explores the grey and untouched subliminal zones of myths, legends and history, redefining human sensibilities and piercing the contemporary social and political scenario, and in his poems it delves deep into the recesses of human experiences enthralling the reader like a whiff of flesh fragrant breeze. Doctor Acharya has distilled the forts, havelis, squares, narrow alleys, windows and casements and the desert breeze so beautifully in his poetry that Ajneya called him the 'inimitable bard of the beauty of the desert'. The conflicts of the creative heart are etched verbatim in his creation. The words written upon the paper are not mere words; they are the yearnings of the heart distilled upon the paper. As a thinker Dr. Acharya is an altogether different person. His critical insight into contemporary literature, art and culture, society and civilization education and humanist concerns, and ability to carry it out to it logical conclusions establish him as a mature and complete thinker.

Ramakant Rath (born 13 December 1934) is one of the most renowned modernist poets in the Oriya literature. Heavily influenced by the poets such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Rath experimented greatly with form and style. The quest for the mystical, the riddles of life and death, the inner solitude of individual selves, and subservience to material needs and carnal desires are among this philosopher-poet's favorite themes. His poetry betrays a sense of pessimism along with counter-aesthetics, and he steadfastly refuses to put on the garb of a preacher of goodness and absolute beauty. His poetry is full of melancholy and laments the inevitability of death and the resultant feeling of futility. The poetic expressions found in his creations carry a distinct sign of symbolic annotations to spiritual and metaphysical contents of life. Often transcending beyond ordinary human capabilities, the poet reaches the higher territories of sharp intellectualism. The contents have varied from a modernist interpretation of ancient Sanskrit literature protagonist Radha in the poem "Sri Radha" to the ever-present and enthralling death-consciousness espoused in "Saptam Ritu" (The Seventh Season). Rath was born in Cuttack, Orissa (India). He obtained his MA in English Literature from Ravenshaw College Orissa He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1957, but continued his writing career. He retired as Chief Secretary Orissa after holding several important posts in the Central Government such as Secretary to the Government of India. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1977, Saraswathi Samman in 1992, Bishuva Samman in 1990 and India's 3rd highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan in 2006. He was the Vice President of the Sahitya Academy of India from 1993 to 1998 and the President of the Sahitya Akademi of India from 1998 to 2003, New Delhi.


Prof. K. Satchidananadan, former Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi(the National Academy of Letters, India), is an internationally recognised poet, critic, translator and editor. He has 22 collections of poetry, 16 collections of translations of poetry, 20 works of literary criticism including two in English, 4 plays and 3 travelogues to his credit. He has received 21 awards at regional, national and international levels. His collections of poetry have appeared in 16 languages including English, French, Italian and German.He has edited eight journals including Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi’s bimonthly and several anthologies of poetry,shortstories and essays in Malayalam, English and Hindi.He has travelled across the world, reading and lecturing and representes India in several international fairs and festivals including The Sarajevo Poetry days, Berlin Literary Festival, Frankfurt Book Fair, Leipzig Book Fair, Paris Book Fair, Lahore Book Fair, The Indo-Arab Literary Festival at AbuDhabi, The Festivals of Culture in the USSR and in China, Writers Exchange Programmes in Syria, France, Italy , Sweden and the U.S.A.

Keki Daruwalla is a leading figure in Indian poetry in English today. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984) and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1987) for Asia. Born in Lahore, Daruwalla holds a Masters degree from Punjab University, Chandigarh. He joined the Indian Police Service in 1958 (the recurrent theme of violence in his poetry has frequently, and somewhat reductively, been attributed to his choice Over nine books and more than three decades, Daruwalla’s poetry has journeyed a long way both formally and thematically.

Udaya Narayana Singh  is a reputed poet, playwright and essayist in Maithili and Bengali. He has published four collections of poems and eleven plays in Maithili, as well as six books of literary essays and two volumes of poetry in Bengali, besides translating several books. He holds a doctoral degree in Linguistics from the University of Delhi and is currently the Director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. Singh has visited and lectured in a large number of countries including Bangladesh, the Caribbean, France, Germany, Italy, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand and USA. He was a member of the Indo-Italian Cultural Exchange Programme for Creative Writers (1999), a member of the Official delegation to Trinidad and Tobago (2002), Mauritius (2005) and a poet-invitee at the Frankfurt Book Fair – India Guest of Honour presentation (2006).At presant he is the Director of Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore.

Kunwar Narain has been a stalwart presence in the field of Hindi poetry for five decades. Since his first book, Chakravyooh, in 1956, this Delhi-based poet has published five books of poetry, one collection of short fiction, a long narrative poem, three works of literary criticism and several translations of the poetry of writers such as Cavafy, Borges, Mallarme, Walcott, among others.
Associated with the 'Nayi Kavita' (New Poetry) in Hindi, Narain was one of the poets featured in Teesra Saptak (1959), one of the four influential anthologies of seven contemporary poets, edited by the eminent poet, Agyeya. He has been variously described as 'one of the most well-read poets in Hindi', a predominantly ‘meditative’ poet, 'dwelling on the present through the prism of myth and history' and as a writer whose work reveals ‘a twentieth century sensibility in its anguish as well as its resourcefulness’. His many accolades include the Hindustani Akademi and Sahitya Akademi awards.


Surjit Patar, He retired as Professor of Punjabi from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. He started writing poetry in mid-sixties to emerge as the foremost Punjabi poet today. In 1995, he was given the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his Hanere vich Sulghdi Varnmala. He has won numerous other Awards in India and abroad. Singers of national and international repute have sung his soulful ghazals and songs, and he himself is an accomplished singer. His has published four books of poems - Hawa vich Likhe Harf (words written in the air), Birkh Arz Kar (thus speaks the tree), Hanere vich Sulghdi Varnmala (words smouldering in the dark) and Lafzanh di Dargah (shrine of words). He has translated into Punjabi the three tragedies of Garcia Lorca, the play Nag Mandala of Girish Karnad, and poems of Bertolt Brecht and Pablo Neruda. He has also adapted plays from Giradoux, Euripides and Racine.Prof Patar has written tele-scripts on Punjabi poets from Sheikh Farid of the 13th century to Amrita Pritam of the 20th. He has also presented them with great 鬡n. He is the President of Punjabi Sahitya Akademi, Ludhiana, and member of the General Council of Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi and its Punjabi Board.

Chandra Prakash Deval- Born 1949, Rajasthani and Hindi poet, and translator, Deval received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979 for his first poetry collection Paagi. His other collections include Maarag, Kaavad, Topnama, Udeek Puran (Rajasthani) and the Meera Award winning Bolo Madhavi (Hindi). Besides translating the Upanishads, Fyodor Dostoyevesky’s Crime and Punishment and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, he has also translated major Indian poets like Sitakant Mahapatra, Haribhajan Singh, Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Kedarnath Singh , Sitanshu Yashaschandra, Ashok Vajpeyi, Ramakant Rath and K. Satchidanandan into Rajasthani. Recently he has completed his monumental bilingual edition of Suryamall Misan’s classic epic Vansh Bhaskar. His other awards include Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad Samman and Sahitya Akademi’s translation award.
 

Dilip Jhaveri-  He writes in Gujarati and his published works are Pandukavyo ane Itar (1989), a collection of poems, and Vyaasochchvas, a play (2003). Its English translation A Breath of Vyas has been published by Seagull Books in 2006. He intends publishing 18-poem Khandit Kand, written after demolition of Babri Masjid, along with its translations in Hindi, Bengali and English.He received the Critic Award, 1989, Jayant Pathak Award for Poetry, 1989, and the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad Award in 1990. He has been invited to present his works by the Central and State Sahitya Akademis, Universities and literary groups in several parts of India. He was invited to Asian Poets?Conference in Korea in 1986 and Taiwan in 1995. He has read his poems in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. His translated works have been included in several anthologies in Indian and Asian languages and in English.

Mamang Dai is a journalist and author and her poems and short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies. Former President, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ). Dai worked for the Sentinel newspaper, The Telegraph and The Hindustan Times. Currently she is a freelance journalist.She is the author of 'Arunachal Pradesh- The Hidden Land.' 2003, ‘Mountain Harvest,' a book on the Food of Arunachal Pradesh, and 'The Legends of Pensam' (Fiction- Penguin India) 2006. She also has a Poetry collection: 'River Poems.' (2004) and The Sky Queen and Once upon a Moontime (KATHA) are among the first illustrated publications of the oral literature of the state for young readers. Dai is the first woman of the state to be selected to the IAS /IFS/ but left the service to pursue a career in journalism.Currently she is General Secy, Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society, Itanagar, and member- North East Writers' Forum, (NEWF), and Member -General Council of the Sahitya Akademi. Dai was also the program officer, WWF in the state Biodiversity Hotspots Conservation programme and is founder- president of the Arunachal Heritage Society, a voluntary organization for preservation, documentation and promotion of cultural heritage. Dai lives in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. Her address is-'Gute- Gamroh, ' C- Sector, Itanagar--791111, Arunachal Pradesh.
 

Jiban Narah is a college teacher by profession. He grew up under the twin influence of Mishing tribal culture on one hand and the Assamese mainstream culture on the other.At a comparatively young age he has grown to be a popular and influential Assamese poet with the fascination and number of his readership increasing year after year not only in his home-state but all across the country. Till date he has eight publications to his credit that includes, apart from poetry, a novel, Bhoomir Phoola, a collection of personal essays and a compilation of Mishing folk poetry translated into Assamese from the original compositions in Mishing dialect. The rich collection of Mishing folk poetry has been approved by the Sahitya Akademi for publication in English titled 'Listen my flower bud : Mishing tribal oral poetry of Assam'. A collection of his selected poems was published in Marathi in 2005 titled 'Jiban Narahchi Assami Kavita' Meanwhile, his poems have been translated over the years into English, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil,Hindi, Marathi, Oriya, Gujrati, Manipuri etc.

Robin S Ngangom (b.1959) was born in Imphal, Manipur, and is a bilingual poet who writes in English and Manipuri. He studied literature at St Edmund’s College and the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, where he currently teaches. He has three collections of poems in English and has published poems and translations in The New Statesman, Verse, Planet: the Welsh Internationalist, Chandrabhāgā, and Indian Literature.
 

Vishvanath Prasad Tiwari- Eminent Poet, critic Editor of a Hindi journal - Dastavej (from 1978), Critic and member Sahitya Akademi. he has 5 collections of poetry and 8 collections of  criticism and two travelogues. He got prestigious award - Sahitya Bhooshan and visited several literary meets in India and abroad. His poetry presents the soul of Indian literature.

Ajmer Rode is a Punjabi Canadian author living in Vancouver BC. A poet, playwright, translator and a cultural activist he writes both in English and Punjabi. Rode is one of the poets whose work has been added to Poetryinternationalweb with eight of his poems in English along with Punjabi translations. One of the poems 'Kalli' reflecting on the bonding between human and animal life in Punjab, received special attention from editors. The poem was also displayed with a painting Homecoming in a Surrey Arts Gallery exhibition (Jarnail Singh - Discovering the soul of Punjab) in 2004.
Atamjit Singh, a well known writer in India, has written a befitting piece on Rode published in Hindustan Times. View it here: MELTING 'S'POT - Verse expanse
View Rode's website at: www.ajmerrode.ca

Satyapal-

Shambhu Badal-Poet, Editor, Critic and member Sahitya Akademi. His Hindi journal - Prsang presents important aspects of modern literature. His poetry is quite close to nature and common man and give smell of Indian ness. 

Rati Saxena is a Hindi poet, translator . She has authored four collections of poems in Hindi (Maya mahathagini, ajanmi kavita ki kokh se, sapane dekhata samudra and Ek khiRki and aath salaakhen) and Two in English ( The Serpent quailing woman body and One Window and Eight bars) and Malayalam (in translation). Besides, she has written several research articles on Vedic literature and Indology and published critical studies. Her poems are translated in different languages Rati Saxena has translated 9 books from Malayalam to Hindi. Translations of some of the most well known Malayalam poems and novels have earned her nation-wide respect and recognition. She has written a book on famous poet of Malayalam -Balamaniyamma. She got  Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation in 2000. She is also a recipient of the prestigious Indira Gandhi National Culture and Arts Fellowship, which helped her complete this path-breaking work “A seed of mind-a fresh approach to Atharvavedic study".


Dr. Satinder Singh Noor -Vice President Sahitya Akademi and An Eminent Punjabi litterateur , Poet and critic.  Along several awards He is recipient of kendra Sahitya Akedemi's award for his book of criticism Kavita di Bhoomika. Noor is an institution in the world of Punjabi letters and known for his love of poetry and poets. He has been an admirer of the poetry of Surjeet Patar and Amitoj. Noor himself pens poetry but is better known for his criticism. A former head of the Department of Punjabi, Delhi University, and editor of Punjabi Akademi journal Samdarshi, Noor wields great power in the Punjabi literary circles. However, what he is liked most for is his good nature and the spirit of Punjabiyat deeply entrenched in him.

Shri Kikkeri Narayan- He is the founder of Bilingual Transfer Model of Education for Tribals. He has done pioneering work in introducing post modern and post –structuralist literary criticism in Kannada. He has written text books in Junukuruba, a tribal language of Karnataka. His play Kitale Balli has been selected as Play of the Century by Karnataka Sahitya.