Young Poets Society

With Lieke Marsman, Jan Těsnohlídek and Jaume Pons Alorda

Especially for City2Cities three young poets from Barcelona, Prague and the Netherlands translate each others poetry with the help of young translators. They meet each other for the first time in February and they perform with their translations at the City2Cities edition of iPoetry Live during the festival in April.

The Young Poets in 2012
The Dutch Young Poet is the very talented Lieke Marsman (1990). With her debut poetry collection Wat ik mijzelf graag voorhoud she won, among other prices, the prestigious C. Buddingh Award 2011. Prague is represented by Jan Těsnohlídek (1987). His collection Násilí bez předsudků (Violence Without Prejudice, 2009) was awarded the Cena Jiřího Ortena Prize in 2010. This is one of the most important prizes for young authors in the Czech Republic. His latest collection Rakovina was published in 2011. From Barcelona we invite Jaume Pons Alorda (1984) to come to Utrecht. This young poet has already published twenty poetry collections. His latest collections consists of three parts: Els estris de la llum (The instruments of the light, 2009), Cilicium (2009) and Carn vol dir desaparicions (Carnal means to disappear, 2010). The second part of this collection was awarded the Ciutat de Palma Prize in 2009.

Young Poets Society
At the end of February the three Young Poets meet in Utrecht to translate each others poems in Dutch, Czech and Catalan. Their poems are published in all three languages in the festival’s anthology which will be sold during the festival. At the City2Cities edition of iPoetry Live they will perform with the translations of each others poems in the Mirror Tent.