German Poets Bringing US Tour To Newtown

Three nights after they launch a national tour of the United States, German poets Wolf Hogekamp, Lars Ruppel, and Sebastian 23 will bring that tour into Newtown for an appearance and performance as part of Wednesday Night Poetry Series.

The trio will be the guests on July 28 at The Garage, Newtown’s teen center at 53 Church Hill Road.

Wolf Hogekamp lives as an a/v editor and poet in Berlin. Since 1994 he has been reading and performing poetry and organizes regular poetry slams in Berlin. He is a pioneer of the German Poetry Slam scene.

Since 2000 Mr Hogekamp has been the mentor of the Bastard Slam in Berlin, one of the most important and biggest poetry slams of the German spoken word scene. He was the founder of the first national of German speaking poetry slam in 1997, and managed the tenth annual event in 2007 in Berlin.

He has done more than 400 appearances with poetry slams and readings on German-speaking stages.

Lars Ruppel was born in 1985 and is reportedly the youngest professional slam poet in the German-speaking area. Since the age of 16 he has been touring through Europe, offering impassioned performance poetry and the largest glasses since Buddy Holly or Erich Fried.

He has won most important slam events in Europe, the national team competition and the German TV Poetry Slam. In 2009 Mr Ruppel published his artwork in three books of poetry. He works as a tutor in colleges and trains teachers in the field of modern spoken word poetry.

Sebastian 23 is a poet from the industrial town of Bochum. Born in 1979 as a son of a coalminer, he grew up to become a poet. Today he is one of the most successful slam poets, winning several National Slam Competitions, touring across Europe and America and starring as special guest at the US-National Poetry Slam 2009.

Now in its 14th year, WNPS recently moved into its current location at The Garage. The regular schedule for the series is to offer an open mic at 7:30 pm, with local poets then reading from 7:45 until 8:45, and each week’s featured poet then reading at 8:45. The series has hosted special guests include poets, spoken word artists, monologists and storytellers, acoustic performances by songwriters and other musicians.

A $3 donation is requested, and each session usually includes a poetry editing workshop at the conclusion of each week’s featured poet segment.

Featured artists and reminders about WNPS can be found in the Enjoy calendar each week, as well as online at wedpoetry.wordpress.com.