Dmytro Lazutkin

Dmytro Lazutkin was born in November 1978 in Kyiv, Ukraine. In a period of just four years he has published four poetry books, received a number of poetry awards, and has become a welcome guest at all possible festivals and readings. He has somehow also managed to maintain equally good relations with different generations of the Ukrainian literary scene.
Lazutkin graduated from the National Technical University in Kyiv in 2001 and became a metallurgic engineer, spending half a year as a design engineer at a Radar plant. When asked what makes an engineer start writing poetry, he answered: "Better to ask what can make a poet become an engineer". His memories of working at the plant consist mainly of the wonderful view of Kyiv from its roof.

Lazutkin never went back to engineering. For the next three years, the poet, who has a black belt in kempo karate and is a national champion in Cossack martial arts, worked as a karate coach. In 2004, he went to Poland on a Polish Ministry of Culture artistic fellowship for Ukrainian and Byelorussian artists, Gaude Polonia. Back in Kyiv, he worked as an events organizer at a pub for a year and then as a sports journalist at the National TV Company. Since then, he’s stuck to journalism.
In the meantime, Dmytro Lazutkin was awarded the Bohdan-Ihor Antonych literary award (1999), the Granoslov literary award for young writers (2002), the Smoloskyp literary prize (2004), and the Kultrevansh (Cultrevenge, 2005). In 2006 he was named Poet of the Year by proza.com.ua.
He participated in the First Literary Festival at the Lviv Publishers Forum (2006), Magnus Ducatu Poesis (Minsk, 2006), Independence Day with Makhno (Huliajpole, Ukraine, 2006), CEKH (The Workshop, Kharkiv, 2006), the Moscow Festival of Vers Libre (2005), the Moscow Poets' Biennale (2003), among others. His poems have appeared in Chetver (Thursday), Potyah 76 (Express 76), Kurier Kryvbasu, Kolekcia, Tryton, Futurum-art etc.
information from: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/
photo from: http://www.avtura.com.ua/writer/97/