Jan Wagner (1971, DEU) is regarded as one of the most important contemporary German-language poets and is internationally acclaimed for his craft. Poetry to savour, driven by sheer delight in language and layered observation. In his poems, something minuscule can unfold into an entire universe. You come for the humour and the fine-tuned rhythm, and you stay for his subtle questioning of time, mortality and our worldview. The fact that the Dutch translation of his internationally celebrated collection Stenen & Aarde is released just before the Word on the Street edition of Poetry International feels like a small cosmic wink.

How you might know this poet

• Winner of the Georg Büchner Prize (2017), Germany’s highest literary distinction, awarded for his complete body of work.​
• The first poet ever to win the Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse (2015) for Regentonnenvariationen.​
• His work has been translated into more than 40 languages.​