Jan reads poems from his previously published collections in German and in English, and talks about his poetry, influence, tradition, form and his work as translator and publisher in the context of contemporary German poetry.

Bio: Jan Wagner was born in Hamburg in 1971. He studied British and American literature at the University of Hamburg and Trinity College Dublin, before moving to Berlin where he now lives. He is the author of five collections of poetry published by Berlin Verlag, including Guerickes Sperling, Achtzehn Pasteten and most recently, the aptly titled Australien (2010) – even though his present visit to Australia is his first. He has won numerous awards for his poetry, including the Anna Seghers Prize (2004), the Ernst Meister Award for Poetry (2005), the Wilhelm Lehmann Award (2009) and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2010). He has also published translations of poetry by the American poets James Tait and Charles Simic.