Interview to Spanish Poets Inma Pelegrín and Katy Parra

Interview in Spanish: Award-winning Spanish Poets Inma Pelegrín and Katy Parra are interviewed at the University of Leeds by Dr Diana Cullell, Lecturer at the University of Liverpool (Iberian and Latin American Studies). During the interview Inma Pelegrín and Katy talk about the current state of poetic production in Spain, the connections with political changes in Spain, socially committed poetry, cultural policy, accessibility of poetry, meaning in poetry and language learning and poetry. They also talk about their own poetry and their influences. The interview took place on the 3 February 2015. Inma Pelegrín is the winner of the prestigious literary awards “Premio Hispanoamericano de Poesía Juan Ramón Jiménez 2012” and “Premio Internacional de Poesía Gerardo Diego 2007”. Inma's poetry is fresh and direct yet distinctively sublime. She is a poet of immense emotional intelligence and linguistic talent, as she can arouse the most nuanced feelings in the reader by using familiar and colloquial language, which she seamlessly transforms into poetic gold. Her latest work includes Universo improbable (2009) Trapos sucios (2008), Óxido (2008) and Cuestión de horas (2012) Katy Parra is a literary activist and poet who has published extensively since 1997. In 2008 she won the International Poetry Award dedicated to Miguel Hernández. Her poetry sits comfortably along those unique voices in Spanish poetry who have managed to put the most exquisite formal poetic demands at the service of clarity, subtle irony and unexpected eroticism. Katy is the author of Coma Idílico (2008), Por si los pájaros (2008) and La manzana o la vida (2013). Inma Pelegrín and Katy Parra visited the University of Leeds to participate in the International Writers at Leeds event held on the 3rd February 2015 at Leeds Central Library. The event "Exploring the Feminine and the Divine" also featured poets Siobhan Mac Mahon and Hannah Stone, guitarist Sabrina Piggot and Antonio Martínez-Arboleda (University of Leeds- Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies) as literary editor and translator.

Antonio Martinez-Arboleda

3/30/2015 9:46:19 AM