Charles Olsen awarded the III Poetry Award in Spain

New Zealander Charles Olsen awarded the III Poetry Award SxS Antonio Machado in Spain

New Zealander Charles Olsen has been awarded the III Poetry Award SxS Antonio Machado, which takes the name of the Spanish writer who lived and worked in the cities of Segovia and Soria in Spain.

Organized by the town councils of Segovia and Soria the residency is open to poets resident in Europe of any nationality other than Spanish who have a basic knowledge of the Spanish language. The winner receives 3,000 euros and the town councils cover the poet's travel costs to and from their cities.

The jury, presided over by Manuel Rico Rego and including Amalia Iglesias, María Isabel Gil, César Ibáñez and Andrés Martín has awarded the III Poetry Award SxS Antonio Machado to Charles Olsen for his proposal, which includes the first draft of a collection of between 30 and 40 poems in Spanish divided in two parts (Segovia and Soria) and a poetry project with the participation of residents of Segovia and Soria.

Charles will spend one month in each city following in the footsteps of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who first moved to the region of Castile in 1907 taking up the position of Professor of French at the Instituto General y Técnico of Soria, which now bears his name. He stayed until 1912, the year his young wife, Leonor Izquierdo, died and shortly after the publication of the first edition of Campos de Castilla.

2019 will be the centenary of the Antonio Machado's arrival in Segovia where he stayed from 1919 until 1932 giving classes at the Instituto General y Técnico—now the IES Mariano Quintanilla—and actively participating in the creation and development of valuable democratic projects such as the Popular University, which will also celebrate its centenary in 2019 and has now become the San Quirce Royal Academy of History and Arts. A convinced pro-European and committed to peace and respect when both were becoming scarce in the world, Antonio Machado continues to be an important humanist and ethical figure, which only adds to the greatness of his literary oeuvre.

Charles himself has published two collections of poetry in Spain, Sr Citizen and Antípodas, and his poems are included in recent editions of Landfall, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook and Blackmail Press.

For New Zealand's Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day in August he will be running the competition Given Words, now in its third year, and to celebrate receiving the award he will choose words from one of Antonio Machado's poems with which participants must weave their own poem. The Given Words competition, open to all New Zealand citizens and residents of any age, will go live on 1 August and has prizes for Best Poem and Best Poem by Under-16s, donated by Massey University Press and Mākaro Press. The winning poems will also be translated into Spanish.

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