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Semana Poética VIII

Semana Poética IX

October 24-28, 2010

Semana Poética (A Week of Poetry) is a multi-departmental, international and multilingual festival of poetry organized annually by Dickinson College. During the event, poets from around the world gather to read their work, meet with students, and visit classes, enriching the lives of students, faculty, employees and citizens of Carlisle and surrounding areas. Faculty and students of different academic departments work together in the organization of the festival, translation of poetry, art production and publications. The festival opens and closes with readings by student poets from Dickinson College.

Co-sponsored by Academic Affairs, Global Education, the Waidner-Spahr Library, the Trout Gallery, and the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, German, French and Italian, Russian, East Asian Studies, English, Middle East Studies, and Music.

Opening Night, Sunday, October 24

Rubendall Recital Hall, 7pm, free entrance - Bar will be open during intermission  

Mitchell Cooper (USA), a senior at Dickinson College, has pursued his lifelong interest in the craft of poetry both within the school's English department-accidentally picking up a minor in creative writing along the way-and outside the classroom setting, mostly on roofs.

Anya Settle (USA) is a senior English major and Creative Writing minor at Dickinson College who hopes to someday see success as a writer. Her interest in writing was piqued by poetry at a young age, and she has begun to write fiction in recent years. Her post-graduation plans include attending graduate school and working in New York's publishing industry.

Catherine Wing (USA) Her first book of poems, Enter Invisible, was published by Sarabande Books and was nominated for a 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in journals such as the Chicago Review, Crazyhorse, The New Republic, and Poetry, and have been featured on The Writer's Almanac.  Recently one of her poems was chosen for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2010.

"Poetry into Music, Music into Poetry"
Musical Performance

Voice: Mezzo-Soprano Lynn Helding (USA) pursues a dynamic career comprised of diverse yet interrelated paths. Her stage credits include Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella and the title role in the first American production of Luigi Rossi's Orfeo, with such companies as Harrisburg Opera, Nashville Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, Ohio Light Opera, and the nationally acclaimed Missoula Children's Theatre, Inc. Ms. Helding has presented Made in America, all-American song recitals featuring a broad array of works by American composers throughout Italy, England, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Iceland. Highlights from her work in chamber music include the title role in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, broadcast on Nashville Public Television's series Recital Hall. Ms. Helding studied voice at the University of Montana with Esther England, in Vienna with Kammersänger Otto Edelmann, and Indiana University with Dale Moore where she was the first singer ever accepted to pursue the prestigious Artist Diploma in voice. She earned the Master's Degree in Vocal Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Ms. Helding served four years as a member of the voice faculty at Vanderbilt University, and currently serves as Associate Professor of Voice and Director of Performance Studies at Dickinson College.

Piano: Eun Ae Baik-Kim (Korea) is a Korean-born pianist who immigrated to Brazil with her family at the age of eleven. At the age of sixteen, she performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra under maestro Eleazar Carvalho. She was among a group of twelve pianists chosen to perform in the distinguished concert series Suite Iberia de Albeniz, sponsored by the Spanish Consulate in São Paulo and Rio de Janiero. Baik-Kim has won numerous competitions including the Chautauqua Piano Competition, the Concurso para Jóvenes Solistas and the Concurso Estadual para Instrumentistas e Cantores, which provided opportunities for her to tour both as a solo and chamber musician in the state of São Paulo. During these tours, she received a "Diploma de Honra" for distinguished artistry by the Conservatorio Carlos Gómes. Ms. Baik-Kim has studied piano with Harvey Weeden, George Sementovsky, Edward Roberts, and David Burge, and is also an accomplished accompanist and a collaborative artist. As a recipient of the Performance Accompanying Grant at Temple University, she developed her skills as a collaborative pianist with renowned pianist Lambert Orkis. Baik-Kim received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance and Accompanying and Chamber Music from Temple University.

Monday, October 25

Stern Great Room, 7pm, free entrance

David Leo García (Spain) was born in Málaga, Spain in 1988, where he at present is a student of Hispanic Philology. He became known as a poet after the publication of Urbi et orbi, which received the XXI Premio Hiperión, making him the youngest poet recognized by this publishing house. He is also the author of Escrito escroto escruto, which received the award Málaga Crea in 2006, and Demanda de sol, published in 2007.

Tatiana Shcherbina (Russia) was born In Moscow in 1954 and studied at Moscow State University. She is the author of seventeen books, including poetry and prose. In 1989, Shcherbina's poems began to be published in the official Soviet press. She worked for Radio Liberty from 1989 and until 1994 in Germany and in France. Shcherbina writes poetry in French and in Russian and has translated a number of French poets into Russian. In 1994 she was awarded a scholarship by the French Ministry of Culture. Her poetry has been widely translated. She returned to Russia in 1997 and now lives in Moscow. She served as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Esthete and as associate editor of Vestnik Evropy (European messenger). She has two collections of her poems in English translation, Life Without (Bloodaxe Books, U. K.) and The Score of the Game (Zephyr Press, U. S.), translated by Jim Kates.

Official Opening & Reception: Tuesday, October 26

Waidner-Spahr Library, Reference Area (main level), noon, free entrance

An Old Man's Work for the Eyes of the Young:
An Exhibit of Selected Drawings by Writer and Artist Günter Kunert

As part of the 9th annual international and multilingual festival of poetry, Semana Poética, Academic Affairs, Global Education, the Waidner-Spahr Library and the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, German, French and Italian, Russian, East Asian Studies, English, Middle East Studies and Judaic Studies are co-sponsoring this exhibit of selected prints by the German artist and writer Günter Kunert.

The exhibit is open to the public throughout the week.

Günter Kunert (Germany) was born on March 6, 1929 in Berlin. He is a German writer who left the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to live in the Federal Republic of Germany. After attending elementary school, it was not possible for Kunert - due to the National Socialist race laws - to continue his high school education. After World War II ended, Kunert studied in East Berlin, but eventually abandoned his studies. He joined the main political party of East Germany, the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1948, and in 1976 he signed a petition against the deprivation of citizenship of Wolf Biermann, a Jew and a member of the German Resistance, and subsequently lost his SED membership. Kunert was able to leave the GDR in 1979 with a visa. He and his wife established themselves near Itzehoe in northern Germany, where he still lives today. Kunert is considered to be one of the most versatile and most important contemporary German writers. Besides lyric poetry he has written short stories, essays, autobiographical works, aphorisms, satires, fairy tales, science fiction, radio plays, speeches, travel writing, film scripts, a novel, and a drama. Kunert is a primary opponent of the new German spelling reform, and serves as a member of the Association for German Orthography and Language Care. Günter Kunert is also a painter and graphic artist; his artistic creations often have a close relationship to his writing, especially to his poetry, allowing the reader to somewhat get an additional insight of his poetic work and mind. The drawings presented in this exhibition are a good example of this. Kunert was awarded many important international prizes, such as the Heine Prize and the Hölderlin Prize. He also received several honorary degrees, including one from Dickinson College. His work has been widely translated, and recently a critical annotated bilingual edition (German / Spanish) of his collection of poems entitled El viejo (The Old Man), appeared in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Stern Great Room, 7pm, free entrance

Mario Moroni (Italy) was born in 1955. He moved to the United States in 1989. He has taught at Yale University, the University of Memphis, Colby College, and currently teaches Italian at SUNY Binghamton. He has published seven volumes of poetry and one of poetic prose. In 1989 he was awarded the Lorenzo Montano prize for poetry. His poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. As a critic, Mario Moroni has published Essere e fare (1991), La presenza complessa (1998), and Al limite (2007). He has co-edited three collections of essays: Italian Modernism with L. Somigli (2004), From Eugenio Montale to Amelia Rossellii, with J. Butcher (2004), and Neoavanguardia, with P. Chirumbolo and L. Somigli (2010).

Yang Lian (China) was born in Switzerland in 1955 and grew up in Beijing. He began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s. On his return to Beijing he became one of the founders of the 'Misty' school of contemporary Chinese poetry. Among other things, Yang Lian is known for his poem sequences and long poems which display a profound understanding of, and creative links with, Classical Chinese poetry. He has published ten collections of poems, two collections of prose and one selection of essays in Chinese. His work has also been translated into more than twenty languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Eastern European languages. Yang Lian received several international awards, including the Flaiano International Poetry Prize. Yang Lian has been an elected board member of International PEN since 2008.

Wednesday, October 27

Trout Gallery, noon, free entrance
Round Table on the poet Manuel Alcántara (in Spanish only)

Presentation of the Fall, 2010 issue of Sirena: Poetry, Art and Criticism. The event will feature a round table discussion on Spanish poet Manuel Alcántara, to whom this issue, with the support of the Fundación Alcántara, is dedicated. Participating on the panel will be two experts on the life and work of Alcántara: Teodoro León Gross, Professor of Journalism at the University of Málaga and Vice-President of the Fundación Alcántara, and Juvenal Soto, poet and literary critic. Sirena editor Mark Aldrich, Associate Professor of Spanish, will also participate.

Stern Great Room, 7pm, free entrance

Sholeh Wolpé (Iran) is the author of Rooftops of Tehran, The Scar Saloon, and Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad for which she was awarded the Lois Roth Translation Prize in 2010. She is a regional editor of Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East edited by Reza Aslan (Norton), the poetry editor of the Levantine Review, and the guest editor of Atlanta Review's best selling issue, Iran 2010.  Her poems, translations, essays and reviews have appeared in scores of literary journals, periodicals and anthologies worldwide, and have been translated into several languages. Born in Iran, Sholeh presently lives in Los Angeles.

Pavel Lion, a.k.a. Psoy Korolenko (Russia), born in 1967, is a poet-singer/songwriter, scholar, journalist and musician from Moscow, Russia. He has performed on stage since 1997. Known as a 'wandering scholar' or 'singing professor', Psoy created his unique multilingual cabaret, combining traditions of Russian and European (especially French) popular and urban folk song, Yiddish folk and theater song, with elements of rap, sound poetry, and other kinds of free-style poetry. Psoy has released a book of lyrics and essays Shlyager Veka (The Hit of the Century) and nine CDs, some of them in collaboration with Russian and foreign musicians, such as Daniel Kahn (US/Germany) and Jim Avignon a.k.a. 'Neoangin' (Germany). His film-screening performance Bed and Sofa (real-time rap commentary to the Soviet classic avant-guard silent movie by Abram Room, 1929) was presented in many universities in the US, and translated into English by Stuart Goldberg (Atlanta, Georgia Tech U).

Thursday, October 28

Stern Great Room, noon, free entrance

Ann Cotten (USA/Germany) was born 1982 in Ames, Iowa, grew up in Vienna and now lives in Berlin as a German-language writer. Her publications include Fremdwörterbuchsonette (2007), Nach der Welt. Die Listen der Konkreten Poesie und ihre Folgen (2008), the elegy Das Pferd (2009) and Florida-Räume (2010). Irregularly in Berlin she hosts the "Rotten Kinck Schow" with Monika Rinck, Sabine Scho and guests.

Lyubomir Nikolov (Bulgaria) was born in Bulgaria in 1954 and has lived in the United States since 1990. He is the author of nine poetry collections in Bulgarian, English, German and Spanish, most recently Unreal Estate, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Nikolov is a recipient of the Southern Spring Literary Award and an award from the Bulgarian Union of Translators.

Nitsa Kann (Israel) is a novelist and a poet. She published two novels in Hebrew: Gazelle of Love, which is currently being translated into English, and Herotica. She is also de author of two books of poetry in Hebrew: Black Soul Singer and Woman With Child (award-winning of ACUM national prize for poetry). She has also published poetry in assorted literary magazines in Israel and in the US. She is an assistant professor of Judaic Studies at Dickinson College. Her teaching and research interests include Hebrew literature, Kabbalah, Middle Eastern Cinema, Feminism, and Queer Theory.

Closing Night, Anita
 Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 7pm, free entrance - Bar opens at 6:30pm

  • Catherine Wing (USA)
  • Tatiana Shcherbina (Russia)
  • Mario Moroni (Italy)
  • Yang Lian (China)
  • David Leo García  (Spain)
  • Psoy Korolenko (Russia)
  • Ann Cotten (USA / Germany)
  • Sholeh Wolpé (Iran)
  • Lyubomir Nikolov (Bulgaria)
  • Nitsa Kann (Israel)
  • Mitchell Cooper (USA)
  • Anya Settle (USA)