Source: <http://www.goethe.de/gr/lon/enpkonf.htm>
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Oskar Pastior at the 13th Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry
Supported by the Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes
Saturday 26 April 2003 8pm
at the Winstanley Lecture Hall, Whewell's Court, Trinity College,
Cambridge CB2 1TQ
The Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry (CCCP) is a weekend of
poetry readings, performances, discussion and other events. Emphasis is
on modernist developments in contemporary poetry. This year's programme
includes a bi-lingual reading with Oskar Pastior, one of the most
distinguished poets from Germany.
"Talking about things is not possible. Language, the text, speaks
itself" - for Oskar Pastior, language itself is the stuff of life. He
explores it through witty wordplay and exuberant nonsense. Critics have
praised his "sublime lack of seriousness", his "paradisal language",
his "revenge against logic".
Oskar Pastior was born in 1927 in Transylvania, a German-speaking part
of Romania. After World War II he spent five years in a Soviet labour
camp. This experience, Pastior says, provided him with his thematic
tonic: "the small - yet vast - space of play between freedom and
determinism". After his return he worked for Bucharest Radio. In 1969,
he managed to come to Berlin. Apart from verse, he has also written
radio plays and essays. Recent poetry collections include Das Hören des
Genitivs (1997) and Villanella und Pantum: Gedichte (2000). The latest
translation into English is Many Glove Compartments: Selected Poems
(transl. by Rosmarie Waldrop, Harry Mathews, Christopher Middleton,
2001). Pastior's many awards include the Ernst Meister Prize (1986),
the Peter Huchel Prize (2001) and the Ernst Jandl Prize (2002).
Admission: £5
For booking and further information about other CCCP events please
contact Lesley Nolan, tel 01223-332 922, e-mail [log in to unmask]
http://www.cccp-online.org/
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