Poets from UK, Greece
Four poets from the British poetry partnership Converging Lines will be in Athens next week to meet young poets from Greece. The public is welcome to hear them read their work, exchange ideas and discuss poetry today. Converging Lines is a poetry partnership that brings talented new poets from the UK to an international audience through public readings, workshops, teaching in universities and collaboration with poets in translation. The Athens encounter is part of the British Council’s initiative to promote networking and cross-cultural exchange between poets in the UK and Greece and is being held in collaboration with the electronic magazine e-poema and the Dasein Coffee Arts & Spirits venue. The participants from the UK are Julia Copus, winner of the National Poetry Competition 2002 and Royal Literary Fellow at Exeter University; Antony Dunn, winner of the Newdigate Prize 1995; Matthew Hollis, winner of the Eric Gregory Award, short-listed for the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, the Guardian First Book Award and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and currently poetry editor at Faber & Faber; and Clare Pollard, winner of the Eric Gregory Award 2000, teacher, critic and broadcaster. They will be appearing with Marigo Alexopoulou, the author of three volumes of verse and a teacher at Athens College; Yiannis Efthymiadis, a teacher and translator and author of two books of poems; Michalis Papantonopoulos, poet and translator, and Vassilis Rouvalis, poet, translator, journalist and editor of e-poema. The event will be followed by a screening of «The Aegean in the Words of the Poets,» a documentary by Lucia Rikaki. (Tuesday, March 11, 2008, 9 p.m. at Dasein Coffee Arts & Spirits, 12 Solomou Street, Exarchia, tel 210.384.1857.) Creative-writing workshops The poets will also lead creative-writing workshops for young Greek poets and prospective poets. The workshops will be held in English and are open to the public, however, places are limited and will be allocated on a strictly first come, first served basis. To reserve a place, please contact Nikolaos Alexandris by phone on 210.369.2336 or by e-mail at [email protected]. The deadline for expressions of interest is Friday, March 7, 2008. (Tuesday, March 11, 9.30 a.m.- 12.30 p.m.; Wednesday, March 12, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. British Council, 17 Kolonaki Square.)
