April 11th: Jean Portante, Zoë Skoulding, Lyndon Davies, Steven Hitchins, Rhys Trimble

Wednesday, April 11th, 19h00, Carr’s, 1 rue Mont Thabor, M Tuileries / Concorde / Pyramides

An evening of readings to celebrate the international quarterly Poetry Wales, with editor Zoë Skoulding and contributors to the magazine from Wales and Paris.

Jean Portante was born in Di&#fb00;erdange (Luxembourg) in 1950. He is of Italian origin and lives in Paris. He has written widely-translated novels, stories, plays and poetry, published in Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, Slovakia, Argentina and Colombia. He has translated numerous poets into French, including Juan Gelman, Jerome Rothenberg, Pierre Joris, John Deane, Gonzalo Rojas and Maria Luisa Spaziani.

In 2003 his book L’Etrange langue was given the Mallarmé award in France, and in the same year he won the French Grand Prix d’Automne de la Société des Gens de Lettres for his life’s work. In 2011 he was awarded the Batty Weber Prize in Luxembourg and in 2012 the Fondane Prize in Paris. His selected poems, La Cendre des mots. is published by Editions le Castor Astral (2005) His latest books are Le Travail du poumon (Editions Le Castor Astral, 2006), Je veux dire, (Editions Estuaires, 2007); En réalité, (Editions Phi, 2008), and La réinvention de l’oubli (Editions le Castor Astral, June 2010). As a novelist, his works include Mrs Haroy ou la mémoire de la baleine, which is widely translated.

Since 2006, Jean Portante has been a member of the Académie Mallarmé. In 2008, he founded, in France, with poet Jacques Darras, the poetry magazine Inuits dans la jungle, while in Luxembourg he edits the literary magazine Transkrit.

Zoë Skoulding’s most recent collections of poems are Remains of a Future City (Seren, 2008), long-listed for Wales Book of the Year 2009, and The Mirror Trade (Seren, 2004). Her collaborative work includes Dark Wires with poet Ian Davidson (West House Books, 2007), From Here, with images by Simonetta Moro (Dusie, 2008) and You Will Live in Your Own Cathedral with sound by Alan Holmes (LAF-Seren, 2009). She is a member of the group Parking Non-Stop, whose album Species Corridor was released by Klangbad in 2008. She lectures at Bangor University and has been Editor of the international quarterly Poetry Wales since 2008.

Lyndon Davies is a poet, reviewer and essayist living in Powys. He has published two collections of poetry, Hyphasis (Parthian Press 2006) and Shield (Parthian Press 2010) . His poems and critical articles have appeared in various magazines, as well as in the anthologies Poetry Wales forty years (Seren 2005) and The Pterodactyl’s Wing (Parthian 2003). With poet Graham Hartill he runs the Glasfryn Seminars, a series of discussion groups on aspects of literature. He is also a co-organiser, with poet John Goodby of the yearly festival of innovative poetry The Hay Poetry Jamboree.

Steven Hitchins is a poet from the South Wales valleys: born in Abercynon, currently living in Pontypridd. He tries to map these urban-rural, industrial-pastoral borderzones through collage and walking. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Wales, Fire and Chimera. His article ‘Poetry: Music: Space’ is in Junction Box issue 2. He occasionally edits the small press/little magazine/blog, The Literary Pocket Book, from which his homemade pamphlets The Basin and Palisade Winters are available.

Rhys Trimble is a bilingual poet, improvisational performer and editor from Bethesda and Pontneddfechan. He is interested in heterglossic, psychogeographic, mythic and radical pastoral poetry. Rhys is published widely, including in Angel Exhaust, Poetry Wales, Skald, Tears in the Fence, Aesthetica, Seventh Quarry and elsewhere. He was a John Tripp &#fb01;nalist in 2009 and winner of the Cinnamon Press Collection Competition. Recent publications include Keinc (Cinnamon Press 2010) and Mynydd (Hafan 2012).