Chus Pato

Xoel Gómez

Chus Pato was born in Ourense in 1955 and is a major voice in contemporary Galician poetry. Since 1991 she has published eleven collections of poetry. Her work has been translated into numerous languages, has appeared in dozens of Spanish and international anthologies and, thanks to the translations by the Canadian poet Erin Mouré, enjoys high regard in the English-speaking world. In 2015, Pato was the first Galician poet to be included in the sound archive of the Woodberry Poetry Library at Harvard University, where she can be found next to Elizabeth Bishop and W. H. Auden. In 2017 she became a member of the Royal Academy for the Galician Language. Pato’s work goes beyond any traditional concept of poetry. She uses the most different sorts of text to integrate a great many voices – historical as well as fictitious – into her writing. With each one of her books Pato recasts what we think about the possibilities of poetic texts – about words, bodies, the political and literary space and about the construction of ourselves as individual, community, nation, world.

Publications (in Galician):
Un libre favor. Galaxia, 2019.
Carne de Leviatán. Galaxia, 2013.
Nacer é unha república de árbores. Do Cumio, 2010.
Secesión. Galaxia, 2009.
Hordas de escritura. Xerais, 2008.
Charenton. Xerais, 2004.
m-Talá. Xerais, 2000.
Nínive. Xerais, 1996.
A ponte das poldras. Noitarenga, 1996.
Fascinio. Toxosoutos, 1995.
Heloísa. Espiral Maior, 1994.
Urania. Calpurnia, 1991.

Awards:
2014: Writer of the Year of the Galician Booksellers’ Association
2009: Spanish Critics‘ Price for Hordas de escritura
2009: Premio Losada Diéguez for Hordas de escritura
1997: Premio Losada Diéguez for Nínive

Festival Content

LANGUAGE ARCHIPELAGO II

Lust for Languages and Language War in Spain

Spain’s multilingualism is a result of its history and is lived in the densely-populated regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country as well as in Galicia, and has been increasingly instrumentalised for political purposes.

Maria Callís Cabrera • Sofía Castañón • Olvido García-Valdés • Teresa Irastortza • Chus Pato

WELTKLANG – Night of Poetry

Weltklang – Night of Poetry is the opening in many voices of the poesiefestival berlin – this year in video format online. Poets from all parts of the world read, sing and perform in their seven native languages. They show the wealth of contemporary poetry, the diversity of its content, the wide range of its approaches and styles. The German translations will be faded in; many of the poems have been translated into German for the first time for Weltklang.

Ichiko Aoba • Marieke Lucas Rijneveld • Marko Tomaš • Chus Pato • Peter Waterhouse • Judith Zander • Ben Lerner • Hannah Lowe • Valzhyna Mort

Interview with Chus Pato

Language Archipelago II: Lust for Languages and Language War in Spain

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Chus Pato

Poetry Talk with Chus Pato

Galician author Chus Pato interviewed by her longtime translator into English, Canadian poet Erín Moure. A conversation with a true connoisseur, across Pato’s work – about poetry and politics, the role of the voice in poetry, its diversity of forms and lack of hierarchy. A conversation about Berlin as an interface between Western and Eastern Europe, the poem as action, and the non-existent difference between animals and humans.

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Chus Pato