Monday 13th September at 7 pm via Zoom

LIVING IN THE IN-BETWEEN

An Evening of international poetry linked by a theme of Poland running through the lives of the featured poets:
Teodor Ajder from Moldova, previous USSR
Anna Błasiak from Poland
Kholoud Charaf  from Syria
Daedalus Chaos (DJ Lawrence) from Texas, USA
Aaiún Nin from Angola
Maria Jastrzębska from Poland

DJ Lawrence is a Texan-born performance artist and writer, who works in numerous artistic fields including rap (known as D’Chaos), painting, and comedy. Known across Europe for his spoken word and slam poetry talents under the moniker Daedalus Chaos, his ironic style veers between self-deprecating humour, insightful social commentary, and satire. Daedalus has performed in multiple festivals and slams in several countries: Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Denmark and Poland.

Teodor Ajder was born in the former USSR, in Chisinau, Moldova. Teodor is a writer, psychologist, special educator, translator, curator and poet. He is the author of a number of books (in Romanian and Polish) in which the topic of migration is prevalent – MO[PO]JARO (2010); The Mēn Mask is For A Japanese Girl (2008, reedition 2019); Vurda, The Heart’s Replacement (2003), Hour of Love (2002), Allofus (2020). The #4 issue of Mămăliga (2019) is a Romanian-Polish anthology of recent Polish protest poetry.

Anna Błasiak is a poet, writer, translator, journalist and managing editor of the European Literature Network. She has recently co-translated Renia’s Diary by Renia Spiegel and also published a bilingual poetry and photography book (with Lisa Kalloo) Kawiarnia przy St James’s Wrena w porze lunchu / Café by Wren’s St-James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime, as well as a book-length interview with a Holocaust survivor Lili. Lili Stern-Pohlmann in conversation in Anna Blasi

Kholoud Charaf is a poet, an art critic, a publicist, and a social activist, a medical technician by profession. She studied Arabic literature. Charaf has published four books so far, including the volume of poetry “The Remains of the Butterfly”, in which she lyrically deals with the war in Syria and life “between loss and hope”. Her poems have so far been translated into a total of ten languages .In 2018 she held a scholarship of ICORN in Villa Decjusz in Krakow for 2 and a half years.

Aaiún Nin is a poet, mixed media artist and activist from Angola. In her work she addresses the issues of race, ethinicity, migration and various forms of sexual discrimination. In Denmark she worked in collaboration with artists and activists socio-political movements oriented towards empowering queer racialised minorities.
Aaiun has performed at various festivals in Oslo, Copenhagen, had an exhibiteion at Aaros museum in Denmark. Her first book On The Blackness Of My Skin was published in Denmark last year. She is currently a poet resident in Kraków.

Maria Jastrzębska was born in Poland and came to the U.K as a child. Small Odysseys, her fifth collection, will be published by Waterloo Press later this year. Her selected poems The Cedars of Walpole Park (2015) were translated into Polish. Her poetry is much anthologised and features in the British Library Between Two Worlds – Poetry and Translation project. She co-translated Elsewhere by Iztok Osojnik (Pighog 2011) and The Great Plan B (Smokestack 2017). She is the co-editor of a number of anthologies, including Queer in Brighton (New Writing South 2014). Following a Wellcome Trust award, her drama Dementia Diaries toured nationally Recently, a triptych of film-poems of Maria’s poems was a part of Snow Q, which has been screened internationally.

The event is compered by
Agata Palmer, a poet member of Exiled Writers Ink

To attend the event, please register at:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-poetry-cafe-living-in-the-in-between-tickets-168788427731