Poetry Reading by Martin Solotruk, introduced by Rod Mengham
English Faculty GRO5, 19.00, October 19th
Martin Solotruk is a leading Slovak poet. He teaches at the Comenius University in Bratislava, where he received his Phd in translation studies. His teaching and research interests include American literature, translation, comparative literature and creative writing. In 2007 he was awarded the Ján Hollý Prize for his translation of Ted Hughes’s Crow. He has also translated book-length selections of poems by Ashbery, Simic and Forche, and plays by various authors that have been staged in the Slovak National Theatre, Astorka Korzo 90, Studio L + S, The Slovak Chamber Theatre and elsewhere.
He has so far published five poetry collections: Tiché vojny (Silent Wars, 1997), for which he was awarded the Ivan Krasko Prize for the best debut, Mletie (Grinding, 2001), Lovestory: Agens a paciens (Lovestory: Agent and Patient, 2007), Planktón gravitácie (Plankton of Gravity, 2006) and Metafyzická domácnosť I (Metaphysical Household I, 2017) and he has read at poetry festivals in Hong Kong (2019), Antwerp (2015), Toronto (2014), Vilenica (2013), Berlin (2012, 2006), Genoa (2010), St. Andrews (2007), Taipei (2005), and elsewhere.
His poetry has appeared in book-length translations in English, German, Spanish, Dutch and Hindi, and selections have been translated into twelve languages including anthologies such as Lob des Wildtiers in Winter. Gedichte aus der Slowakei (Verlag Das Wunderhorn, 2014), New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008), A Fine Line: New Poetry from Eastern and Central Europe (Arc Publications, 2004). His poems in English translation appear in the database of academic and artistic texts CEEOL.
Martin Solotruk is also managing editor of the Ars Poetica Publishing House and director of the International poetry festival of the same name. Over a span of seventeen editions, Ars Poetica has featured a number of leading poets as well as emerging writers in the contemporary poetry world. He has also initiated a number of other interdisciplinary projects including the European Poetry Forum platform.
The Ars Poetica Festival has also brought to the Arts Faculty of Comenius University a number of key figures in the field of contemporary English-speaking poetry, e.g. Robert Pinsky, Carolyn Forché, Ron Padgett, and Ciaran Carson.
Translations of his work will be read by Rod Mengham
