Antonia Alexandra Klimenko is our Poet in Residence. An incredibly strong poet she’s been a regular at SpokenWord since 2006 with poems that combine a mastery of craft and a powerful voice. Her poetry ranges from the courageous to the tender, the spiritual to the profane.
Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible published by Opiate books is now available.
Biography:
Antonia Alexandra Klimenko trained as an actress at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few. After his death, it was his friend the late great Kathleen Raine who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish. Although her manuscript was orphaned upon ‘Tambi’s passing, her poems and correspondence have been included in his Special Collections at Northwestern University. A former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion and devotee of Spoken Word, she has read and performed at various venues including S.F.’s renowned Purple Onion and The Intersection for the Arts. Her sold-out one-woman show Where the Blue Begins was presented in conjunction with Sonoma’s performing art series Women on the Edge. More recently she has presented her work at Shakespeare & Company, participated in three présentations hosted by Three Rooms Press as well as performed at 100 Thousand Poets for Change here in Paris. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times and Best of the Net, Klimenko’s work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France), Jazz and Literature and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she has been Poet in Residence since 2015. She is also Writer/Poet in Residence at The Creative Process. Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible published by Opiate books is now available.
An Interview With a Poet’s Poet: Antonia Alexandra Klimenko by Malik Crumpler
SpokenWord Paris 