valeri scherstjanoi was born in 1950 in kazakhstan, where his parents had exiled. he grew up in the region of krasnodar, nowadays part of the russian federation. he graduated in german studies and moved to the german democratic republic in 1979. in 1981 he settled down in eastern berlin, where he is still living today. from 1968 onwards he started to do poetic readings on russian futurist authors, which he has accompanied with several text interpretations and theory work, like in the book tango mit kühen (Wien, 1998). 
after developing different fields, from 1990 he is dedicated to poetry only: sound and visual poetry, experimental texts performance, and visual art work with his music scores - he calls himself a "scribentist". between 1994 and 1998 was the art director for the sound poetry festival bobeobi (berlin). nowadays he is considered one of the most distinguished phonetic poets in europe. his work is strongly influenced by russian futurists, and as many of them he uses the most basic sounds and works with his own alphabet. 
he is going to perform with the musician, composer and sound artist wolfram der spyra (eschwege, germany, 1964), with who he has already collaborated with in several sound poetry festivals, the last time being in the festival musica viva in munich. they are going to present the piece aus vollem halse in honour of maïakovski, in which spyra is going to process and mix scherstjanoi's voice live.

A Definition of Soundpoetry
Valeri Scherstjanoi



Soundpoetry is a form of poetry that ignores the rational comprehension of language in favor of pure verbal sounds and attempts to create new forms of communication on an emotional level.

It represents an intimate area of poetry; not to be quietly read but to be loudly heard! The tonal shadings of poetry: speech tones, sounds and articulations. It's not about the "traditional" understanding or non-understanding of the rational part of speech. Soundpoetry creates new poetic and lyrical horizons of communication. It can be perceived as music, but it is still firmly rooted in language, its system of symbols and
acoustical signals.

Thinking - Feeling. From thinking through to feeling and back again - or are both in competition with each other? Reason, Intellect or Emotions? Which wins, which loses? Words, language, sounds and tones flow in their own continuum. The Russian Futurists Velimir Chlebnikov and Alexei Krutschonych wrote in their 1912 manifesto "The Letter as Such":
"There are two situations: 1. that feelings experienced during writing change the handwriting, and 2. that the handwriting, uniquely changed by these feelings, communicates these feelings to the reader independent of the words. Likewise, one has to ask this question with respect to visible or simply tactile (as for the hands of the blind) letters. Each letter kisses your finger." Thus an alternating dependency is created between the voice and writing - and again writing and the voice. The human instrument creates its own individual sound signature; tiny traces - footprints of sound. The
spoken word strives toward memory, notation and writing: "scribentisms", tonal images, ersatz letters for our little alphabet, characters from the realm of sounds.