Dirk HuelsTrunk – www.soundslikepoetry.de
„Laughing at the poet“ consists of samples of audience reaction to my soundpoetry performances & the question posed by a teacher „kann ich hier lachen oder muss ich das ernst nehmen“ („am I allowed to laugh/ or do I have to take this seriously“), a question that arises frequently at my performances. As a soundpoet I am not particularly creating funny or comic pieces. But very often the audience will react with laughter, a laughter that rather seems to be a laughter of surprise than the laughter of fun. With very academic audiences I can often feel there is an urge to laugh but the laughter is restricted, because they think they might not be allowed to laugh at serious art in serious art places.
„Laughing at the poet“ only uses original samples, without any further effects.
DIRK HUELSTRUNK - Images from the word sound planet

Contact: dirkhuelstrunk@yahoo.de
Web: www.soundslikepoetry.de

HuelsTrunk is a sound poet, spoken word poet, writer, creative writing teacher and curator of art/poetry events from Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Influences range from Dada, Surrealists, Fluxus, Beatpoets to Pop and modern electronic sound-poetry.
He frequently collaborates with artists & musicians and is founder of the improvising jazz-poetry performance project "SOUNDS LIKE POETRY?" Collaboration with finnish performance artist Juha Valkeap‰‰ as „JIRK“ and German Fluxus artist Brandstifter.
HuelsTrunk publishes & performs in Germany and internationally. He lectured on sound poetry in Germany, Vienna, Croatia, Finland, USA. He is also one of the pioneers of the Poetry Slam movement in Germany, organizing Poetry Slam, Spoken Word events and festivals since 1996.

Books:
-Antikˆrper/Antibodies (Germ./Engl), HuelsTrunk – Text, Brandstifter – Collages, Translation: Fred Bergman, Frankfurt, 2009
-SITZEN GEHEN STEHEN (Minimal Prose),Darmstadt & Dreieich 1997
-ECHT, (phantastic short novel), Vienna 1995

Solo-Audio CD:
-Free Mouse Jazz – HuelsTrunKollektiv, Jamendo 2011
-Blitzkrieg/ Gemutlichkeit, gruenrekorder, 2005
–Examples of Sample Poetry, gruenrekorder 2004,
-Wer ist Erwin?, gruenrekorder 2004.

Grants/Residencies:
2012 Kone Foundation, Saari, Finland
2011 Hessischer Literaturrat – Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Nuoren Voiman Liitto – Villa Sarkia, Sysm‰, Finland
2009-
2010 Resident artist at J.-Schumann-Schule, Babenhausen & F.-Ebert-Schule Frankfurt for half a year each.

www.dirkhuelstrunk.de
www.facebook.com/dirk.huelstrunk.9